EFGH India and Lorraine Music Academy present “An Anthem for Jana Gana Mana”

In a one-hour online concert streamed at midnight on the eve of India’s 75th year of Independence, Indians and friends of India played the Indian national anthem from different corners of the world, Austria, California, Melbourne, Spain, Germany, France and of course from India. The instruments the anthem was played on were Violin, Cello, Sitar, Guitar, Grand Piano and Keyboard. The idea was created by Emmanuel Upputuru’s brand new agency, EFGH.

The online concert was broadcast by Lorraine Music Academy on all digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Says Aubrey Aloysius Aubrey Aloysius, Founder and CEO: “Lorraine Music Academy offers a unique method of music learning delivered through our interactive and enjoyable content, combined with cutting edge technology, accelerating a student’s progress. This enables the learning process become very efficient for a student. From the time of its composition by Rabindranath Tagore, our national anthem, over the years has undergone a number of changes so that what we hear today are various altered renditions of the original. What we wanted to do for India’s diamond jubilee was to bring back the original, as prescribed by the Indian Constitution. So Lorraine Music Academy decided to make a series of easy videos with the correct tune and rhythm for people to learn and play.”

Says Fiona Aloysius, Lorraine Aloysius, Founder and Director: “We reached out and found all these wonderful musicians and beginners from all over the world who spent just a brief amount of time with these easy to use videos and learnt to play very quickly. Our Academy has been teaching a variety of musical instruments and vocals for many years, so we thought, why not put our abilities to good use for India’s 75th. As a music teacher and a proud Indian citizen, I felt it’s not right to sing and play wrong versions of our beautiful anthem! We didn’t want the original one to slip away from memory. That’s why we made very easy to use teaching tools for everyone who participated in our concert. Even beginners were able to learn quickly and easily, in their own time. I couldn’t be prouder! They all performed beautifully, and it was lovely to see everyone playing confidently!”

Upputuru said: “The idea came from a startling realisation, as we see the nation preparing for the 75th Independence Day celebrations: that while we all love our national anthem, how many of us actually know the correct lyrics, tune and tone. I didn’t know that the correct version has to be sung in 52 seconds. For a music academy that’s going asynchronous this was a great opportunity for us to launch the idea, An Anthem for Jana Gana Mana. We wanted to demonstrate that it’s not difficult for anyone – that’s why we chose people from different countries, different walks of life, and of all ages. This is just a beginning of a great journey.”

One of the performers, Sami Meyer, from Germany said: “I actually studied in India for a few years in high school, and we had to stand and sing the national anthem once a week, but I didn’t remember it after all these years. My wife is half Indian and I was happy to learn the national anthem to surprise her.”

What began as an initiative to teach the Indian national anthem correctly, turned into a global event where the anthem was played at midnight from all over the world.

Lorraine Music Academy is being accelerated by IITstartups.org in India and USA.

EFGH is an agency started by the multi-award winning creative director, Emmanuel Upputuru along with Joyce Shepherd. Previously he was the Chief Creative Officer at Cheil.