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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Ruhaniyat 2015: In search of transcendence
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Ruhaniyat 2015: In search of transcendence

Ruhaniyat 2015 is travelling to seven cities, including Mumbai

Turkish musician Latif Bolat will also conduct a workshop.Premium
Turkish musician Latif Bolat will also conduct a workshop.

NEW DELHI :

It was on a trip to Bulgaria a few years ago that Nandini Mahesh, co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered Banyan Tree Events, first thought about bringing the polyphony singers of Bulgaria and the Kalbelia gypsies of Rajasthan together in a musical production.

“The polyphony singers of Bulgaria spoke about coming to India with great passion. They believe their ancestors travelled to Europe from Rajasthan. It was hard to trace their journey back accurately, because it was generations ago," Nandini says in a phone interview.

Banyan Tree invited the Vaya Quartet singers from Bulgaria and Kalbelia women from Rajasthan to sing together at Ruhaniyat, its music festival with a focus on mystical and folk traditions, in 2014. “Their collaboration was like two rivers gushing down and merging," says Nandini.

Ruhaniyat has included international and national collaborations in its programme this year, too. Rajasthani folk singer Kachra Khan will share the stage with Mamadou Diabate N’agoni, a Balafon player from Burkina Faso, in an Indo-African collaboration. And a Banyan Tree production will combine the naam kirtan (a kind of chanting of God’s name) traditions of the Nagaaris from Assam and Warkaris from Maharashtra.

What: In its 15th year, Ruhaniyat, which begins on 28 November in Mumbai, will see performances by regulars like Baul singer Parvathy Baul and Sufi singer Madan Gopal Singh, and also new acts like khoomei overtone or throat singing (where the singer produces two, at times three, sounds, as he sings the mystic verses) by Mongolian singer Hosoo Khosbayar.

Two workshops, including one by Turkish musician Latif Bolat on 1,000 years of Turkish Sufi mystic tradition, will also be conducted on 29 November.

What to expect: For his first performance in India on Saturday, Khosbayar, who was born in a family of khoomei singers and has been training since he was seven years old, will sing traditional songs and play the horse-head fiddle. Explaining khoomei singing in an email interview, Khosbayar says: “The specificity of the khoomei even-throat singing technique is that the singer simultaneously produces two notes: a long-drawn buzzing tone over which the melody rises to great heights. It can be sung in as many as three-part harmonies. A good khoomei singer sings without moving his lips".

He adds: “The west-Mongolian legend about khoomei overtone and throat singing is about people imitating the sounds of nature. The Dominican monk André de Longjumeau compared the singing of the Mongols to the howling of the wolves, as the peculiarity of the Mongolian variety of sound and singing style differs considerably from the Western style."

Nandini says that the production with Warkari singers and Nagaaris might also be visually interesting. “The Warkaris stand (during the performance) and play the pakhwaj. As the energy rises, they move and jump. It’s not a choreographed or pre-determined movement. They often criss-cross. The Nagaaris, on the other hand, play the nagaari (a percussion instrument not unlike the nagaara of Punjab, but less sonorous) and sit during the performance. The basic thread is the same—naam kirtan—but the two expressions are very different," she says.

Nandini adds that there won’t be any “superstars" at the event this year either. Though performers like Baul, Singh and Bhai Nirmal Singh have a large following, she says, the focus of the festival remains on discovering singers in the rural interiors of India who are the “carriers of living traditions".

Nandini gives the example of Warkari singer Avadhoot Gandhi. “He and his entire group are under 30. It makes you think there is hope (for preserving this tradition)," says Nandini.

Where: The festival will travel to New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune till early next year.

Ruhaniyat 2015 will be held from 28-29 November, 6.30pm, at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. The workshops are on 29 November, 10.30am onwards, at the same venue. Passes for the evening and workshops are available at Fabindia, Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel; Oxford Bookstore, Churchgate, and the Banyan Tree office, Vile Parle (East). Click here for details.

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Published: 26 Nov 2015, 07:47 PM IST
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