Changes to the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana

This letter is urgently written to inform, the friends and supporters of St. Thyagaraja Music Festival in Cleveland, about some important changes that are to be introduced with regards to the program format.

This year marks the 31st anniversary of this festival in Cleveland. The success of the festival is largely due to the enormous support we have received from each and every one of you, who have attended for some or all these years.

The festival has become larger in scope and more prolific with quality programs, driven again by the strength of attendance that has gone over 1500 to 2000 in the past few years. The organizers — The Aradhana Committee and Bhairavi Fine Arts — have been challenged to match this enthusiasm with innovative programs and a longer festival to accommodate the professional visiting artists from India and the aspiring ones from within the North American continent. There was never a dull moment in terms of the challenges to be faced and the most crucial one turned out to be the mounting deficits.

The main purpose of this letter is to record the fact that the shortfall problem has reached a crisis proportion especially due to the last minute dropout by the sponsors who had otherwise promised substantial financial support for this year.

The critically aggravated financial position has forced the organizers to come up with a restructured program format, introducing a very reasonable cover charge for a few of the concerts, leaving most of the concerts free and open to public. This is to augment the donations, that have been the main and only source of festival financing, yet have fallen far short of the needs of the festival that has been free and open to the public for all these years.

The Aradhana Committee & Bhairavi Fine Arts