February 16, 2026 04:37 am (IST)
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KEN and FreemantleMedia open the second Indian Idol Academy in Kolkata
Kolkata, June 21 (IBNS) Coinciding with the World Music Day celebrations, the second Indian Idol Academy opened in Garia in south Kolkata on Saturday, to train music enthusiasts across the state.
Indian Idol Academy is a joint initiative of KEN (Karm Yog Education Network) and FreemantleMedia.
While inaugurating the academy, co-founder Sourav. J. Sarkar said, “We want to spread a musical awareness in the whole country. Our basic aim is to create good human beings; we want the kids to know the basic of music. Now one may argue that it is not for all, so is integration and calculus, but we all end up learning it anyway."
"We will be presenting the kids with ample opportunities to hone their skills; they will have the right platform and will get to mingle with the very best in the music industry. A lot of the countries have musical reality shows but this is the very first time something like this has emerged from a show and India is the first country to do so.”
The academy will be offering four courses. The first ‘Jaago-Wake up to the Magic of Music’ is a 90 minute interactive workshop followed by Music Discovery Program. It is a yearlong program divided into four parts of three months each. If one is good enough he/she will graduate onto the next level Talent Development course, a three year program.
The very best will make it to the ultimate round ‘Saadhana’ where they will not only train with the academy mentors but will have interaction classes on a regular basis with Hariharan, Salim Merchant, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Alka Yagnik through the ‘Omnidel’ teaching method.
To mark the inauguration a competition was organized. A total of 75 kids in between the age group of 5 and 15 years took part. The three judges Sunayana Ghosh, Kalyan Bhattacharya and Dhiman Pal are also in charge of their Salt Lake Academy.
When quizzed about the kind of talent she was looking forward to meeting, mentor Sunayana Ghosh told IBNS: “I am looking forward to developing singers’ right from the scratch. I am not really expecting anything extraordinary as our aim is to develop the ordinary singers and make them great. Our thought process is simple; we want to cater to everyone. Patience is the key according to me. Music is for all and I congratulate everyone who has made this dream possible.”
The academy has already opened 30 outlets and is planning to add 12 more by the end of September, this year. They will further branch out into the field of dance, theatre and acting and is in talks with eminent personalities like Daksha Seth, Prabir Guha and Shyam Benegal to look after their respective discipline.
(Reporting By Sudipto Maity)
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