About ICMCA

The Indian Classical Music Circle of Austin (ICMCA) is Austin’s premier organization for the promotion of Indian classical arts in the Central Texas area. Founded in 1991, ICMCA has, in its 33-year history, conducted 300+ concerts in Austin, with cumulative attendance at events exceeding 50,000 to date.

We are a tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization with deep roots in Austin: we serve our community by expanding the artistic and cultural landscape of the ‘Live Music Capital of the World’.

Contact ICMCA

By Phone: 512.895.9524
By Email: [email protected]

Governance & Funding

ICMCA is run by an annually elected, all-volunteer board, with membership dues, non-member ticket sales and grants making up the majority of how our programming is funded. In 2001, we applied for and were granted tax-exempt status by the IRS under Section 501©(3). Since 1999, we have expanded the number of our events each year from 4 to 6 (2001, 2002) to 8 (2003 – 07) to a high of 11 events in 2010.  In 2024, ICMCA will host 6 events. We try to keep the ICMCA membership rates reasonable and affordable for everyone whether it be a single subscriber or a family.  That said, most of the increase in our funds have historically come from increases in our  membership base from about 100 individuals (1999) to over 300 (2004) and close to 450 (2019).  Donations from members and well-wishers and matching contributions from local corporations such as Dell, IBM and AMD are gratefully received.  The grants from the City of Austin and the Mid-west Arts Alliance have become a reliable source of funds year over year.  During the pandemic years (2020-21) ICMCA applied for and received grants from the Small Business Administration’s COVID-19 support programs under the CARES Act. More recently, ICMCA was honored to be selected for the first cohort of the THRIVE Grant recipients from the City of Austin!

As the number of our events each year has expanded, our annual budget has also increased, at times doubled. What is noteworthy, however, is what does not show up in our budget, namely the thousands of hours (and dollars) spent by volunteers on activities such as boarding/lodging for artists, transportation, and so on (never billed to ICMCA or claimed as tax deductions).

Indeed, the budgeting requirements of the City of Austin have presented us with an opportunity to finally tally and enumerate how much time and effort is spent gratis by our volunteers as a labor of love for Indian Classical Music. Starting 2006, we have expanded our pool of volunteers to include a whole network of online friends of ICMCA who help us with writing press releases, creating brochures, posting events on online websites, etc. This has allowed us to tap into a resource pool that we previously did not leverage, namely the goodwill of several people who want to help non-profits fulfill their mission, even when they themselves do not live in Central Texas.

Audience

Our audience is, broadly defined, all music-lovers in Central Texas, and particularly, aficionados of Indian classical music and dance (thanks to ICMCA, a growing community). ICMCA’s founders were a cross-section of music-lovers in Austin, combining both people of Indian origin AND others with an interest in bringing Indian arts to Central Texas. For obvious geographic reasons, most Indians proficient in Indian classical music and dance live and practice their art in India. ICMCA, by bringing together those with an interest in these art forms and in exposing other music-lovers in Austin to them, thus fills a vital gap in Austin’s cultural mosaic.

Starting from less than 50-60 attendees per concert in 1991 (mostly hard-core fans of Indian music and dance), our base now covers well over 2000 individuals, casual fans included, with attendance peaking at 2300 for our blockbuster events. Some examples of large and small concerts are:

• SHAKTI – 50th Anniversary tour – John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Ganesh Rajagopalan, V. Selvaganesh – 2023
• Parshwanath Upadhye and Punyah Dance Company – 2023
• TRIVENI – Zakir Hussain, Jayanthi Kumaresh, Kala Ramnath – 2022
• T.M. Krishna – 2022
• Niladri Kumar – 2021
• Begum Parveen Sultana, Anoushka Shankar – 2019
• Ustad Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Louis Banks and others – 2015
• Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Mysore Brothers, Alam Khan, Ustad Shahid Pervez, Gundecha Brothers, Rama Vaidyanathan – 2012
• Kadri Gopalnath, Shashank Subramaniam, Ustad Shujaat Khan, Nityasree Mahadevan, Shijith Nambiar & Parvathy Menon – 2011
• Kushal Das and Kumar Bose, Priyadarsini Govind, Ashwini Bhide & Gundecha Brothers – 2010.
• Maestro Shashank, Ustad Nishat Khan, Mohiniyattam & Shakti – Bharatnatyam dance ballet – 2009
• Dr. L. Subramaniam and Pandit Jasraj – 2008
• Ustad Shahid Parvez & Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum – 2007
• Mandolin U. Shrinivas & Ekaantha Seetha – 2006
• The Lute and the Flute & Hot Talas and Cool Rasas – 2005
• Silappadhikaaram – 2004

The community cross-section covered has also expanded, from South Asians and Ravi Shankar fans, to the wider Austin/San Antonio dance communities and fans of live music.

Community & Educational Outreach

We work very hard to get the word out to the community. We use a variety of ways to reach our audience, both on the ground, where we post flyers and posters at around 80 locales around Austin where music-lovers are known to congregate, and online in the websites of all local newspapers (not just the Statesman and the Chronicle, but also all community newspapers and gazettes, outreach to local classical music, outreach to professors of music at the University of Texas and Texas State University) and on the air (PSAs in KUT 90.5 FM – NPR affiliate). Our events are regularly in the Statesman’s Best Bets and on KUT’s Eklektikos. We also have been given the opportunity to advertise in the Statesman’s Community Calendar on Sundays, and secured on-air interviews for some of our performers on KUT. This has contributed immeasurably to extending our audience base, as more and more Austinites hear of us and come to attend our events.

We have worked with several local non-profits who are also dedicated to classical music to ensure that they approve of the artist and the music, and would support the concert with publicity activities. These organizations include Sangeet Millenium, Austin Thyagaraja Samiti, Naadasudha (student organization at the University of Texas) and Austin Dance India (a local school dedicated to promoting Indian Dance).

We recently became a member of Austin Circle of Theatres, which acts as an umbrella for several arts organizations in Austin. With this membership, we hope to get exposure at the Austin Visitor’s Bureau, which is one of the sources of arts listings in Austin, both for locals and for tourists. We are also interested in attracting senior citizens to become a part of our concerts. To further that intent, we met with and obtained permission from the Directors of the Austin’s three Senior Activity centers and over 15 Recreation Centers (run by the City of Austin) to place posters on their activities notice boards. We offer a 50%; discount to seniors, and have proposed to these centers that we would be willing to sell them blocks of tickets for an additional discount. Lastly, we are also working with two organizations VSA Arts of Texas, an organization that works with educational and arts organizations to make their events accessible to disabled citizens, and with Knowbility.org, an organization that makes technology accessible to the disabled, to make our programs accessible to the disabled.

Executive Committee Members