In an attempt to create a new Guinness World Record for the largest electronic keyboard ensemble, M.S. Martin, a well-known keyboard teacher in Chennai brought 229 children together on stage. The event held on Jan. 16, 2014 at the Convention Hall in Chennai Trade Centre’s vast campus had children from 25 different schools in Chennai.
M.S. Martin had earlier set a record with 109 children playing the keyboard. But when that record was broken in Ney York, he drew plans to set a higher goal for the new records.
Titled Samaran, music for World Peace, the concert had songs like ‘Vande Mataram’, ‘Vaishnava Jan to’ and the Oscar winning ‘Jai Ho’.
The composer A.R. Rahman’s sister A.R. Reihana was also among the chief guests along the industrialist Nalli Kuppuswami Chetty and veteran playback singer S. Janaki.
“It took six months to train these children, dividing them into two groups of Carnatic and Western music learners and then bringing them together,” Martin says.
The concert held the audience spellbound for 2 hours.
The list of songs included a special Samarpan theme music, composed by M.S. Martin, which displayed a variety of styles in the Indian music set in 5 different ragas.
M.S. Martin conducts Keyboard classes in Mylapore and Adyar.
Contact him at 98400 16565
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