**T. BALASARASWATI** * Presidential Address delivered at the Forty-Seventh Annual Conference of The Music Academy, Madras) Reproduced from NCPA Journal with grateful acknowledgements to NCPA, Mumbai. It is with mixed feelings of pride and humility that I have accepted the high honor bestowed upon me by the Music Academy, Madras in asking me to preside over their forty-seventh annual conference. My pride is in our South Indian traditions of music and dance and in my family’s special heritage within these traditions; my humility stems from my awareness of my role as an individual artist within these great traditions, and from my debt of gratitude to all those who have helped me in my life-long dedication to the twin arts of music and dance— my family, my gurus, my friends and critics, and the public that has come to pay homage to these arts, to appreciate and understand them, not only throughout