News

London’s Southbank Centre

“All classical music begins in India. it predates Western classical music and has a highly developed theory behind it”
Sandeep Virdee, Artistic Director of Darbar

The Darbar Festival brings the colours, sounds, and aromas of India to the Southbank Centre for a vibrant weekend of music, talks, food, and yoga from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 September in the Purcell Room. From dawn to dusk, hypnotic ragas will set the pulse of the day for a full immersion in the rhythm of India. Showcasing India’s most respected classical virtuosi, many appearing in the UK for the first time, The Darbar Festival provides an ideal introduction to an ancient tradition, which is more than 4,000 years old. Many of the concerts will tour nationwide to 12 different cities.

“Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony”
Paramhansa Yogananda, yogi & guru

The word darbar refers to an audience chamber in the Maharaja’s court where guests assembled to listen to music, narrations and discussions. For the last four evenings of September, the Purcell Room will transform into a darbar where audiences will be immersed in the ageless and otherworldly sounds of Hindustani and Carnatic musical traditions, both vocal and instrumental. With its core value of cultural celebration, the Darbar Festival, is for the specialist and the newcomer alike.

Indian music has settings and functions for which there are no Western equivalents, occasions which relate to its curative, meditative and spiritual qualities. In a culture loaded with holistic associations, time and music are two parts of a marriage wherein certain ragas are allocated certain hours of the day – an association that the Festival’s schedule will observe in ‘Sublime morning ragas on the Bansuri’ (Saturday 10.00am), ‘Majestic Morning Ragas on the Sitar’ (Sunday 10.00am), and ‘Afternoon Raga Unveiled’ (Sunday 3.30pm).

14 concerts will take place over 4 days exhibiting not only the iconic instruments such as the sitar and tabla but also an wide array of Indian instruments such as the surshingar, surbahar, pakhawaj, as well as those closer to home, such as the bansuri (flute/recorder) and the violin. Highlights from the festival include India’s greatest violin duo The Mysore Brothers, one of India’s only female classical pakhawaj soloists Chitrangana Agle-Reshwal, India’s great flute master Pandit Rajendra Prasanna, seventh generation sitar player Ustad Shujaat Khan, and tabla phenomenon Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri performing a rare solo.

This music will be punctuated by talks about the legendary players Ustad Vilayat Khan (sitar) and Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla). Many of these musicians are fifth, sixth, and seventh-generation instrumentalists, and within the Indian pedagogy is an emphasis on improvisation and a strict observance of discipline. “The best Indian music relies on improvisation and expertise, and this year’s festival provided both”, Robert Denselow (The Guardian) wrote about the 2010 Festival. This year promises to be just as entrancing and affecting.

Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust

The Darbar Festival was started in 2006 by Sandeep Virdeem - the founder of Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust - in memory of his father Gurmit Singh. The Trust presents concerts across the UK bringing Indian music to a wider audience. Since the 1960s when Ravi Shankar famously collaborated with Western musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin and the Beatles, there has been a growing interest in Indian music as heard in Bollywood films, whose roots go back to the Indian classical tradition. Although there is a growing curiosity for this tradition, it still remains underrepresented in concert venues across the globe. The Darbar Festival is the first such festival to be featured as part of the Southbank’s classical programme.

Darbar Website

Darbar has recently launched a new website which is an Indian classical online resource for arts, culture and heritage that informs and entertains. Events, videos, audio, infobase, news & reviews. The official launch of the website will take place at the launch of The Darbar Festival on 27th September.

Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee (1937-2005)

Gurmit Singh, to whom the 2006 The Darbar Festival was a tribute, was born in India and raised in Kenya, arriving in the UK in 1975. After being introduced to music through the violin he soon turned his attention to tabla and rhythm, benefitting from the instruction of respected masters, and he became widely recognised as one of the supreme tabla players-cum-teachers of his generation. Eventually retiring from professional musicianship, he became a tireless pioneer for the widening of musical appreciation. In 1983 he set up a beacon project to teach his art to students at the Leicestershire School of Music, and in 1987 he played a key part in the organisation of TAAL – Rhythms of India. TAAL was successful in raising the profile of tabla, developing it as a solo instrument, promoting and creating publicity for UK players, as well as bringing world-class musicians from India to the UK – a journey that some of the festival’s performers will be making for the first time.