About Us

Charsur Arts Foundation

CHARSUR ARTS FOUNDATION has been formed primarily to promote, preserve and support the art and the artistes who have made enormous contributions in the field of CARNATIC MUSIC. Carnatic music is the most ancient form of Indian Classical music which is more than 3000 years old. This music system is based on Indian values and the themes often are spiritual and philosophical in content. The new system is an outcome in appreciation of the efforts that has gone into maintaining and sustaining this ancient art form. This is a unique opportunity to preserve the ancient Indian art and culture - CARNATIC MUSIC.

The operation of the foundation is many fold:

1. Through a modern, up to date virtual web store www.charsur.com the foundation has made a first time effort in the industry which is comparable to the most popular and well used ITunes. It offers downloads of tracks as well as purchase of CDs through the internet. The web store is a market place for all musicians who can upload their music and allow it to be downloaded for a fee. The artistes can show case their music and offer it to listeners.

2. A unique online transparent accounting system has been developed, whereby the artistes who have worked and lived for this art form can earn revenues for life time.

3. The Foundation continuously works on the ongoing project of cleaning and digitizing archival music for listening as well as for sale using the modern technology and making it available to listeners in the latest audio formats..

4. Promotes Young Talent so that many youngsters can be provided a platform in the music scenario. Not only that, the concert will be presented in the web store for the world to listen. This will encourage many more youngsters to take this art form more seriously and work with it.

5. The Foundation provides regular music classes by eminent music teachers - a two fold benefit - both for students all over the world who will be able to learn the music from where ever they are and give back to the teacher who has provided them with the knowledge. The teachers in turn receive revenues for their time, effort and knowledge.

6. The Foundation is involved in basic research - in the area of working on concepts, themes, presenting ideas, music and technology, music and acoustics etc.

7. Constantly educating and giving information on the evils of piracy, illegal downloads, the need to develop interest in maintaining ancient art and culture etc, purely out of public interest is being undertaken by the Foundation.

The foundation plans to :

1. To make payments to artistes who are unable to earn their livelihood but have contributed a lot to carnatic music.

2. Provide scholarships for research and learning music.

3. To showcase artistes in India and Abroad - through festivals.

4. To Show Case Carnatic Music in all Music Festivals in the World.

5. This is a first channelized effort to fight illegal downloads and distribution of music for free.

6. This provides a chance for listeners to give back to the artistes , their families - a sort of support to them, whose music has been enjoyed by all for many many years.

Charsur Arts Foundation, has above all devised systems that makes the Foundation be self sufficient and be able to generate funds on its own to sustain and maintain the objectives set. Donate Generously...We are hopeful with your valued support to promote and preserve this art form the Foundation will be able to work towards achieving its goals.

Join hands with the Foundation. Support the cause of Carnatic music. Contribute to preserve this ancient art form.

Charsur through the years.........

1997	Charsur Digital Workstation was formed by Charubala Natarajan and Suresh Gopalan.
1998	Set up digital recording studio with 16 track facility.
1999	Charsur label launched with 9 titles - the RTP and Thematic brands.
2000	Launched Kutcheri brand with special emphasis on the December Season concerts and albums on the Spiritual category. Signed up Shri Sanjay Subrahmanyan as an exclusive Charsur artiste.
2001	Launched Ksetra and Paddhatti brands and exclusive packaging of December Season 2000 product.
2002	Studio upgraded to non linear digital recording with computer based editing and mixing facilities. Launched Single Raga brand.
2003	Participated in World Music forums like Midem and Womex. Studio upgraded to 24 bit digital recording. Charsur products made available as digital downloads on Apple iTunes.
2004	New brand of 2 raga compositions Dvayam launched. DVD on December Season concerts in DTS format for the first time ever in India.
2005	December Season concerts recorded on 24 bit digital format. Travelled with touring artistes and marketed products exclusively at concert venues.
2006	Set up internet based ordering and delivery facility via www.charsur.com

Charsur Technical Profile
Products Packaging	Pioneering effort in introducing eco friendly digi-packaging on cardboard and dispensing with the plastic cases.
Sleeve notes	Produced exhaustively researched and detailed sleeve notes. These have been written by specialists. The information contains historical background of the content, artistes and the musical aesthetics of the recording.
Artwork and design	Established a system of artwork and design that brings to the fore the musicality and the indianness of the product and dispenses with the system of just portraying artiste photographs. The cover design and the title brings out the content of the product visually.
Branding	Branding the products by bringing in a new line of titles that are separated by category according to the musical content recorded.
Kutcheri	Releasing unedited live concerts bringing the Carnatic Kutcheri to every home.

Charsur Studio Booking

One of the first choices for vocal and narration recording, Charsur studios offer state of the art equipment for all your recording needs.

More Details

Products and Brands

Kutcheri December Season

One of the company's greatest success stories is the brand Kutcheri December Season Under this Brand Charsur brings out the Live Concerts by the performing artist of this decade. This brand brings out the strength of each artist, as the live concerts are unedited and untampered. Unlike the olden days when there was not enough equipments or infrastructure to record the concerts in its pristine form. Charsur captures the audio recording in a very high digital format of 24 bits.

View Products

Ksetra Temples of India

This brand consists of compostions pertaining to famous temples of south India, and the compositions are those which were composed by the great composers and saints when they visited these temples and got inspired and composed.This brand has also gone a long way in the history of Charsur. The selection of the temple is based on research on the history, the musical importance and saints who visited the temples.

View Products

Paddhatti Live Concert of the great maestros

Various masters / legends in carnatic music have made a special place for themselves in the carnatic music genre. This series involves identifying great contributors their live concerts during their period. These concerts are again unedited - acquired from the analog recordings and digitally cleaned and re mastered and presented in the new format.

View Products

RTP Ragam Tanam Pallavi

The brand features one single raga which is sung elaborately by the artists giving various expressions of the ragam and creative aspect of the music with different rhythmic patterns.

View Products

Thematic this brands consists two different themes

The album features various compositions of a single composer.
These albums are on a particular theme. But various composers. All the compositions chosen in this album would be under the theme chosen for.

View Products

Spiritual

This category features chants and devotional music like bhajans and abhangs.

View Products

Developed by Npedia Technologies Pvt Ltd.