Our Activities

Our core events are the hundreds of lecture demonstrations and concerts that we organise throughout the year. Masters of different forms from classical music, dance, folk music and dance and world heritage come to educational institutions and perform for the students. Lec-Dems provide the stage for an informal interaction between the students and artistes, and help to create & fine-tune a future audience.

Our rich heritage and culture is well embedded in our crafts and in folk. Indian folk and craft is full of variation and multiplicity in terms of themes, forms, and styles. The folk forms have contributed significantly in the development of the classical forms of the country. SPIC MACAY conducts various folk performances like Baul, Pandavani, Ottanthullal, Yakshagana, Qwwali etc all over the country to inspire the youth. Different craftsmen continue to influence our heritage with various crafts such as Puppetry, Painting, Carving and Fabric Colouring etc.

To reach out to millions of young students in semi-urban and rural India, SPIC MACAY has empaneled decorated young and energetic artists. They travel to remotest corners of the country and present their artforms (mostly classical music and dance) in schools with limited resources. Through this unique format, we are moving a step forward in touching the lives of every child in the country.

The SPIC MACAY Gurukul Scholarship scheme began in the year 1986 to enable students to have a glimpse into the age-old guru-shishya tradition. It is an attempt to expose school and college students to a way of life with people who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of their work with single-minded devotion. Through this scheme, SPIC MACAY provides a student with the rare opportunity to go and stay with a guru for a month during summer vacations (May /June/July) and observe the ethos that exists in a completely different system of education and living than the student’s own.

SPIC MACAY runs on two wheels: conceptual & organizational. The weekly meetings oil both these wheels regularly. The Weekly Meetings are an integral part of the voluntary movement where the volunteers from all walks of life meet for organisation and conceptual purposes, where all the members of that chapter meets together to plan about the current and upcoming events of that chapter, share their experience in organizing and preparing for the events, exchange posters and banners for different events to happen in different institutes and discuss the issues related to the movement in a global and national perspective.

SPIC MACAY joined hands with national public broadcaster Doordarshan in 2013, to produce a first of its kind show in India and possibly the world, called ‘Naad Bhed – the Mystery of Sound’, a national-level classical music reality show that aims at promoting and popularising Indian classical music and rewarding the best young practitioners of classical music. The common format of singing competitions on TV has been around for decades and has also made stars out of middle-class Indians who can sing, dance, emote or laugh in front of the camera, all in the name of TRPs but SPIC MACAY, in the business of preserving and promoting Indian cultural heritage for 36 years, is surely not looking at finding new “singing stars”.

Many colleges and universities all over India has SPIC MACAY Heritage Clubs in their institutes, where faculty advisors and student coordinators take initiative to preserve Indian classical and folk heritage. We encourage every educational institution to focus on on creating such SPIC MACAY Heritage clubs within the academic framework of the institution, which can work as a hub/ anchor for the SPIC MACAY associated activities, provide a platform for students to take leadership and inspire many more students to learn and tae inspiration in the heritage and arts of the world. Budget for this club can be part of the institute's student welfare and extra/ co curricular activities.

Music in the Park” series in collaboration of SPIC MACAY with NDMC initiated in September 2004 is part of the Community Outreach Programme. The objective of this series is to celebrate our composite heritage, and to bring awareness about a peaceful and clean environment to the people of our country. 

To help alleviate the mental stress of young people during the COVID19 pandemic, SPIC MACAY has recently organized many flagship weeklong online series of programs like Anubhav, Parampara, Rendezvous, Global Connect series, and more, with the purpose of enabling the youth to indulge in mystical and diverse aspects of Indian art, culture, and heritage, thereby aiding in easing the mental stress, during the challenging times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through these various series, SPIC MACAY provides an online platform for young students to interact with eminent personalities and inspiring artists, and hope to push at least handful of students to reach the summit of the “inner Mount Everest” and continue to inspire, motivate each of the participant to learn and preserve India’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. 

In in SPIC MACAY introduces a Pre-School module where we coach toddlers to learn Indian classical music with body movements. This module was conceived by our founder Dr. Kiran Seth and he also pioneered it by teaching the tiny-tots at a Play School which was very popular amongst both the children and parents.