Srinivas Reddy, Director of the Department of Music's South Asian Applied Music Program course and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for his project "Transcribing Traditional Indian Music for Modern Educational Spaces: Historicizing Trends in Hindustani Raga Music Notation and Pedagogy.” This project seeks to explore how traditionally oral repertoires of raga music were transcribed into written manuals for general instruction in late colonial India. Srini plans to revisit this rich archive of educational materials with the critical ear of a practicing musician and a modern-day raga music educator.

Hamsa Shanmugam, A.B. Health & Human Biology, A.B. Music ’24, was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru fellowship for her project "Adapting Thēvāram Concerts to the Carnatic Kutcheri Format." With the Fulbright-Nehru award, Hamsa will conduct ethnomusicological research on Thēvāram—Tamil devotional music of the Saiva tradition—in Chidambaram and Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. This project is a continuation of her current comparative research on melodic frameworks in Carnatic (South Indian classical) music and Thēvāram for her undergraduate honors thesis in music. For her Fulbright-Nehru project, she will research how Thēvāram concerts can be performed within Carnatic kutcheri (concert) structures while maintaining Thēvāram’s musical and lyrical integrity. As an application of her research, this project will culminate in the development and presentation of a full-length Thēvāram concert in the Carnatic kutcheri format. She hopes that her work will broaden the horizons of Western musicology, enrich Carnatic music, expand Thēvāram’s reach, and allow more Tamil audiences in both Tamil Nadu and the diaspora to reconnect with this ancient Tamil musical tradition.

Congratulations and best of luck, Srinivas and Hamsa!