Swaying with the Verses

Welcome to newsletter #2, apparently Tuesday-Wednesdays are the best time to send these musings according to the stats, so I guess the next one I need to send out on a Tuesday. Thank you to everyone that read the first newsletter, and send kind words and feedback… I had this one proof-read, so it should read well and have a limited amount of errors.

Last month was full of music, lots of gigs, exhibitions and inspiration. I went to the Theaster Gates ‘1965: Malcolm in the Winter: A Translation Exercise’ exhibition at the White Cube which is definitely worth a visit, it explores Gates’ first contact with an archive collected by late Japanese journalist Ei Nagata and his partner Haruhi Ishitani who had both been present at Malcolm X’s assassination. It explores various themes with the use of film, pottery, painting, music and sculpture; the sheer scale of some pieces is impressive.

I went to see the Reverb exhibit at 180 Studios on it’s final weekend of showing, I didn’t expect to spend half a day at an exhibition, but there were some very interesting pieces and the execution was quite inspiring to see as well, projectors and large lcd screens featuring heavily with numerous pieces being video driven narratives.

Raga Music Listings— March 2025

Last month there were some inspiring concerts, I was lucky enough to see Niladri Kumar and Satyajit Talwalkar at the Barbican, who were in impressive form at a sold out gig. Putting listings together for this month was fun, there are numerous gigs happening, large and small, so I hope that this helps everyone looking to experience raga-based music in a live context.

The brilliant bansuri player Rakesh Chaurasia is doing a six date tour of the UK, he’s accompanied by a former guest on Nāda Sonics - Shahbaz Hussain on tabla; it promises to be a fine show so make sure you go see if you’re near any of the destinations on the tour list. The amazing singer, Uday Bhawalkar is going to be performing at the Bhavan in London, one absolutely not to be missed! There are events at the Bhavan every weekend in March so a wonderful opporunity to take in performances from Hindustani and Carnatic music artists. The Bhavan will also be hosting my sitar teacher Dharambir Singh, with a number of his students for a celebration of his guru, Ustad Vilayat Khan!

Milap, who are celebrating their 40th birthday this year, are taking their ‘Music for the Mind and Soul’ series to Morecambe, which should introduce a whole new audience to raga-based music!

Fri 14 Mar 2025 / 19:30
The Singing Star
Dharambir Singh, Roopa Panesar, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Akash Parekar, Kamalesh Patel, Eamonn and Arohi Sircar – sitar
Kaviraj Singh – vocal
Upneet Singh, Harkiran Sahota – tabla
The Bhavan, London
Book Now: £10-20

Sat 15 Mar 2025 / 19:00
Raga@7: Parivaar
Dharambir Singh, Surmeet Singh – sitar
Kaviraj Singh – santoor and vocal
Priya Dhadyalla – vocal
Seetal Kaur – kathak
Upneet Singh – tabla
Seven Arts, Leeds
Book Now: £5-£10

Sat 15 Mar 2025 / 19:30
Rakesh Chaurasia
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
Lantern Hall, Bristol
Book Now: £18

Sat 15 Mar 2025 / 20:00
Music for the Mind and Soul
Jonathan Mayer – Sitar
Kousic Sen – tabla
More Music, Morecome
Book Now: £15

Sun 16 Mar 2025 / 18:00
Hindustani Vocal
Uday Bhawalkar – Vocal
The Bhavan, London
Book Now: £17-22

Sun 16 Mar 2025 / 19:00
Milap presents
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
The Tung Auditorium, Liverpool
Book Now: £15

Thu 20 Mar 2025 / 19:30
Rakesh Chaurasia & Rakesh Chaurasia
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
Dora Stoutzker Hall, Cardiff
Book Now: £9-£18

Thu 20 Mar 2025 / 19:30
Jyotsna Srikanth
Jyotsna Srikanth – violin
Howard Assembly Room, Leeds
Book Now: £18-£19.50

Fri 21 Mar 2025 / 20:00
Riverside Ragas
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
The Glasshouse, Gateshead
Book Now: £11-£45

Sat 22 Mar 2025 / 19:00
Classical Indian Flute Music
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
The Curve, Slough
Book Now: £30

Sun 23 Mar 2025 / 19:30
Rakesh Chaurasia & Shahbaz Hussain
Rakesh Chaurasia – Bansuri
Shahbaz Hussain – tabla
Music at Oxford, Oxford
Book Now: £10.50 – £32

Sat 22 Mar 2025 / 18:00
Sitar
Punita Gupta – sitar
M Balachandar – mridangam
Hevylen Shenan – tabla
Rikhil Rai – flute
The Bhavan, London
Book Now: £20-25

Sun 23 Mar 2025 / 18:00
Veena
Doreswamy Balakrishna – veena
M Balachandar – mridangam
The Bhavan, London
Book Now: £17-22

Sat 29 Mar 2025 / 18:00
Carnatic Vocal
Kalyanpuram S. Aravind – vocal
The Bhavan, London
Book Now: £17-27

Sat 29 Mar 2025 / 19:00
Ragas with Soul
Momin Khan – sarangi
Gurdain Ryatt – tabla
Avanti Fields School, Leciester, UK
Book Now: £15

*note… I don’t make any money or anything from these listings, I don’t even get guestlist (although I wouldn’t say no to guestlist… gigging is expensive!), I’m just doing it, because people need to know where to see live music.

Radio Shows

I celebrated three years of radio on Voices Radio with a discussion about Panjabi music with Kirat Assi, my cousin; someone who has been a passionate radio presenter for 20 years and presents a show on Desi Radio! We talked about the social and musical aspects of this music starting from the 1950’s onwards; then realising that we need to do a part 2-4 probably, as we didn’t get through enough music, of which there is so much and we didn’t even get to bhangra!

It was great to cover for Thristian for his Global Roots show on Rinse FM; a wonderful opportunity to share the wide range of music that I’ve been listening to over the last few months!

And this months NTS show was focussed on International Womens Day 2025, the first ever recording on a 78rpm Shellac disc was for a 3min rendition of Raga Jogia by a female vocalist Gauhar Jaan; a supremely talented artist, she recorded over 600 recordings from 1902 to 1920 in over 10 languages!

I also featured sitarist Manju Mehta, who as well being a well respected musician, co-founded the Saptak Festival with her husband Nandan Mehta in 1980, in the city of Ahmedabad. The annual festival spans 13 days, every January concentrating on the classical, light-classical and folk forms of raga-based music, promoting emerging artists as well as those more established.

Next on:

Voices— The World is Sound: Tuesday 18 March 2025 / 11:00
NTS— Nāda Sonics: Saturday 29 March 2025 / 08:00
G-Shock Radio— The World is Sound: Sunday 30 2025 / 13:00

Music Recommendations

My Gigs

I’m hoping to playing out a lot more this year, I’m also working on a few exciting things that will hopefully come to fruition very soon!

21 March — Zar EP Launch / 19:00 / Library Lounge, The Standard Hotel, London

Titled Light Stain at Dawn, the first Pathways release comes from Zar – a thrilling up-and-coming artist whose previous releases have seen him pick up press from Mixmag, DJ Mag and Bandcamp, and scene support from the likes of Naina, Raji Rags, Samrai, Baalti and Suchi. Affiliated with DAYTIMERS and Rhythm Section, this EP sees Zar step out on his own across five tracks focused on the middle ground between functional club music structures and traditional instrumentation.

There will be a listening session of the entire EP, a geek discussion about compressors or something and sets from Almass Badat, Amrisha, Poison Zcora and me! Make sure you come!

29 March - Ambient Session / 19:00 / Sauna Social Club, Peckham, London

4 hours to explore everything in the ambient, downtempo, lofi, raga, blues zone! Last month’s session was so much fun and included a complete play-through of Amjad Ali Khan playing Raga Khammaj with Zakir Hussain. I forgot the Forest Swords 45min remix of Stonemilker by Bjork, I’ll make sure I have it this time!

Thank you for reading, follow me on Instagram for random gigs that pop-up and see you next month!