Curated by Tejaswini Niranjana
What happens when Indian and Chinese musicians meet? Are they able to overcome the lack of a shared language? Can they communicate through voice and melody? Do they simply perform ‘their own music’ or can they actually create new music together? Those musical crossings date back to the 6th century, a good 1400 years ago. That’s when musical scales in China were transformed under the influence of Indian or South Asian music.
Sadly, we don’t know enough about those old connections between musicians in India and China. And that is where the Saath-Saath project comes in. Working between Bangalore, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, we have been finding ways of promoting encounters between musicians, and experimenting with both form and content to electrifying effect. Saath-Saath brings together Hindustani vocalists, Chinese instrumentalists and singers, Cantopop lyricists, composers, and scholars from India, Hong Kong and China.
What does a Chinese dadra sound like? How does a Chinese folk singer present a Hindustani bandish? How do Hindustani vocalists render a medieval Chinese lyric? And what impact have they had on the Cantopop music scene in Hong Kong? Come and listen to musicians who pick up the threads lost centuries ago to make vibrant new melodies.
See saathsaathmusic.com for links to our previous performances.
Performers at the Loopy concert include:
Omkarnath Havaldar, Rutuja Lad, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy and Zhang Yi.
