Music, Art & Cultural Education to Empower the Youth & build the Nation’s Cultural Ethos of Unity in Diversity

Music art and cultural

India’s biggest asset is it’s young population. Between 2013 and 2030, India will add 241 Million people in working age population, and that means the children who are currently in our education system. India is at a critical juncture with 30% of it’s population getting ready to make a transition into adulthood. The youth of this country will determine the direction the economy takes and turn India’s fortunes. This specific aspect of India is going to prove pivotal in making India a world leader in the coming years. We wish to actively engage the youth in interactive learning, listening and appreciating our cultural heritage. We have a vision to reach out to the top urban areas across India. This will help make a big difference to the way India finds it’s true place as one of the world’s leading and influential nations during the next couple of decades.

India must realise the significant impact that music and arts education will have on the individuals and the nation. Music & the arts helps the creative process and sparks the imagination and ideas. When this musical and artistic imagination is ignited in a group circumstance, we have the most extraordinary power to change lives with music and to involve people in music and the arts. It should ideally start with very young children. Through singing is how we engage every child. Through singing is how we teach children to be literate, to read and write. Through singing is how we teach children to analyse. With music you open up the mind of a child in a different and unique way, unique from drama, unique from dance, unique from visual arts, etc. Creativity is the right of every child, and every human being, no matter where or what circumstance. Each of the arts function in different ways in opening up our minds. Music is believed to be at the top of this chain of the arts. The power of the creative force transferred from music to all other areas of art and learning is hugely potent. The neurological evidence for music and arts is spectacular. It empowers children and the youth spectacularly.

We believe that students exposed to the unique intellectual stimulation of music and the arts are more socially aware, responsible, and stand better prepared for whatever academic or professional route that they ultimately pursue. Students of the arts have a more apparent dedication to excellence, an intimate understanding of working as part of a team, and are more self-reliant. Backed by the evidence detailed by sociological and psychological study and the overwhelming agreement of prominent education reformers, LAMP aims to pursue arts education as a mode of promoting intellectual growth, intercultural understanding, and nurture young people who are confident in their ability to think creatively, present, and compete on the national and global scale. There is a need to teach our young people early on that in Diversity there is beauty and there is strength. LAMP believes that the arts possess the most significant potential to create solidarity through appreciation of cultural differences, acting on the principle that the understanding and appreciation of Diversity is a powerful unifier – that our most important similarities, human common ground, are to be found in our distinctive histories of expression. Nowhere is this potential for positive fusion more evident than in the nation of India.

India is in dire need of artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers to shape and build our next generation. Emphasis on music and art in today’s generation is vital to the development of a healthy community. The arts are as important to society as reading, writing, and arithmetic, not just as a disposable extra. Exposure to music and art has a profound impact on individuals. We need to enhance the focus of the young on “The Creative Arts” to build the intellectual, emotional, cultural, economic and political capital of our nation.

Plato said over two millennia ago, “Let me make the songs of the nation and I care not who makes its laws”.

LAMP’s educational objective is to expose school and college youth to Indian and World Music & Art, and thereby inspire and motivate students and young adults to take up the learning of a musical instrument, to sing, to dance, to act, and to generally express themselves through art. LAMP has launched the LAMP Music and Art Festival. www.facebook.com/events/415600105139944

The LAMP Music and Art Festival includes educational workshops, contests and concerts for students of select schools and under-privileged children in Gurgaon / New Delhi (NCR), to begin with, with the hope of spreading to cities / states across the nation. LAMP endeavours to nurture the creative arts in young talent at the grass-roots level across India. One of our aims is to develop in each member of our future generation a love and passion for the arts.

LAMP serves the community through education, workshops, recitals, concerts, performances and exhibitions. Through our workshops, concerts, and performing arts outreach programs, we aim to introduce music, art and culture to the children and youth. We aim to bring to them musical, performing, visual & literary arts experiences and memories that will last for a life-time. The youth will be exposed to the vast, diverse, and versatile cultural heritage of India, which will help bring about a spirit of national integration and unity in the minds and hearts of the youth. This is essential to a progressive Nation building process.

In keeping with LAMP’s objective of nurturing talent and providing a platform for the exhibition of their ability, we will have the next generation of global Indians – students and young adults from various schools, colleges and work places across the country – participate in LAMP’s Nation-wide Talent Contest. We desire our children and youth to learn music and the arts and emulate the life of the great son of the soil who gave us our National Anthem – Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. LAMP has collaborated with Lorraine Music Academy to institute this annual Nation-wide Talent Contest and the annual award to facilitate and encourage the youth. The above initiative under the LAMP Music and Art Festival aims to reach the students in schools and colleges and young adults in their work places across India.

The first phase of the project will involve communicating the need for culture with the theme “Unity in Diversity” and involving the children and youth in cultural workshops, programs, contests and concerts.

Brief Description of lamp trust®:

lamp trust® is registered under the Indian Trust Act, 1882 in Gurgaon, Haryana (Regn. No. 19238 of 2010-11) and has received exemption available under Sec 80G of Income Tax Act issued by the Commissioner of Income Tax, Faridabad (No: 66 dt 05.03.2012).

The LAMP World Cultural Centre, based in Gurgaon, National Capital Region of Delhi, India, aims to promote the Arts – Music and Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Literary Arts – to build a world radiating with peace, harmony and justice. We pursue this through empowering the children and youth of our nation by harnessing their creative and artistic talents. LAMP will give equal opportunities to the next generation, including those from under-privileged backgrounds, and present their skills on a common mainstream platform with the objective of building their self-esteem, dignity, confidence and hope.