rajkot music for class or for mass this was the argument in vogue till yesterday but today the refrain is music for musiclovers and music lovers in saurashtra are legion aplenty this fine art was once upon a time considered the handmaid of the royal palaces sustaining on the support of those rulers no more so it has become a peoples movement so to say the people of saurashtra have taken upon themselves to adopt this fine art and are coming out in large numbers to nurture music classical folk devotional light and others as a matter of fact music scene is undergoing transformation and is getting into its new avtar becoming a real peoples movement this has become possible due to the sustained efforts of the music artistes the people interested in its development many organisations devoted to the furtheance of this rich treasure have come up in rajkot and other towns like bhavnagar jamnagar junagadh and porbandar people outside know pretty well that saurshtra had rich treasure of folk music and devotional music yet very few know that this region has very good artistes in classical music as well of late those interested in clasical music have come together to give a fillip to this rich tradition coupled with this gujarat state sangeetnatak akademi also contributed its mite to create good environment for the development of fine arts like music and dance it is headed by vinoobhai vyas who is himself a reputed music artiste the akademi has been organing music festivals in different towns of saurashtra it also provides platform to the budding artistes and projects veterans too on the nonofficial front a spate of organisations are making laudable endeavours sangeet saurabh an organisation of music lovers has been instrumental in promotion fine arts like music mainly classical brain child of the late gulabbhai parekh it was after his death nurtured by his younger brother the late nanubhai parekh now another younger brother dinesh parekh is nurturing it sangeet saurabh organises recitals once in two months and they are popular thus many national artistes have come to rajkot in the past few years the classical music scene is fast changing in saurashtra several institutions are inthe field of late to promote and popularise classical music soor milan has been in the forefront for past few years it invites veterans as well as upcoming promising artists without any constiitution or officebearers it is a body of likeminded people who offer voluntary help harikant sevak a senior classical music artiste j j shingala and a few others are going allout to make their organisation a real peoples organisation soor milan has a regular music session every sunday evening attended by the cross section of people soor milan programmes are wide and varied classical folk devotional ghazals recently three senior classical music artistesjitubhai oza bakulbhai oza and sarla thacker regaled listeners to a rich fare all the three had got their visharad some four decades ago