The annual Raga Identification Competition — jointly organised by the Music Academy, TAG Corporation and Ramu Endowments — offers an opportunity to Carnatic music rasikas to improve their knowledge of ragas.
Conceived by R.T. Chari, founder of TAG Corporation, it grew out of his own quest to understand ragas more deeply. What began as a learning tool for school children soon expanded into a challenge embraced by rasikas of all ages.
N. Murali, president of The Music Academy, has supported the initiative from the beginning. The first competition was held in 2016 at the Academy, and since then the response from rasikas has been extremely encouraging. Except for the two pandemic years, it has been conducted annually in October. The 2025 edition was held in the morning of October 12 in the Mini Hall, Kasturi Srinivasan Building of the Music Academy.
How does the competition work? Several audio clippings from the Music Academy Tag digital archives are played and the contestants are asked to identify the raga name and write it down against the number provided on a sheet of paper. Finally, the correct answers are announced, and the participant corrects them in the duplicate sheet, ensuring there is transparency in the correction. The person with maximum correct entires wins a cash prize. While many ragas may seem familiar, getting the right raga name within the limited timeframe is both challenging and exciting.
The competition is open to all individuals. However, performing musicians, students of music in their Advanced level and those who have won the first prize in the previous editions of this event are not eligible to participate.
The event goes beyond the contest and announcement of the winners. Musicians are invited to explain the nuances of different ragas and to interact with the participants. Tyagaraja sings, ‘Raga ratnamalikache’ referring to a garland made of gems called ragas — these gems can be rediscovered through this raga identification competition.
