Artium Academy, a Mumbai-based online music education platform, on Tuesday launched south Indian music learning courses.
The academy also roped-in eminent Carnatic singer Aruna Sairam, popular south Indian film playback singer KS Chitra and voice training expert Ananth Vaidyanathan as its board members.
“India has a rich tradition of music but unfortunately there hasn’t been any brand or platform for music education in India which can boast of the legacy of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music or Berklee College of Music or the Juilliard School of Music that the western world has,” Ashish Joshi, Founder and CEO, Artium Academy said at an event here on Tuesday. “That is because India lacks structure or process in music education. While we have traditional methods of teaching music, there needs to be structure to put it together and Artium was created with that thought in mind,” he added.
Launched in February 2021, Artium offers performance-driven music courses designed by music industry stalwarts. Eminent music virtuosos such as Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam (who is also the patron-in-chief), Shubha Mudgal, Aruna Sairam, KS Chithra, and keyboard artist Louiz Banks are some of the faculty heads of the academy.
Joshi said that the vision of Artium is to become the Harvard of music education by offering premiumness. Speaking to BusinessLine on the sidelines, Joshi said that the addition of these south Indian music stalwarts will help the academy to attract a large number of music lovers from the south Indian diaspora, which is spread across India and rest of the world.
“We already have about 1,000 subscribers across the world. With this launch, we would like to add another 8,000-9,000 subscribers by the end of the year. We want to democratise the music as much as possible to make it available for everyone across the globe,” Joshi said.
The fully-online platform, which has 110 dedicated teachers, will provide one-on-one live classes with interactive sessions, four master classes every year with music maestros, access to a vast library of contents besides performing a platform to release musical singles for high-performing singers.
The courses are open for learners above six years. Artium charges ₹750 per hour for the basic courses and ₹1,000 per hour for advanced courses for learners in India. Outside India it is priced at $25 and $30 per hour, respectively.