Live Indian classical music is a transcendent and transformative experience like no other. And while Darbar has made a repository of high-quality content available online—with over 400 videos uploaded on our YouTube...
Aruna Sairam’s performance at Darbar Festival 2016 was a demonstration of how to count the beat with true flair. Fingers flying, heartily slapping her thigh, shooting up and down in a vivid...
Hindustani tabla masters combine jaw-dropping precision with a hugely imaginative approach to improvisation. Here’s a 12-part taster of North India’s most astonishing drum. —Part of Living Traditions: 21 articles for 21st-century Indian...
Thumri is North India’s most popular light-classical song form, developed during the 19th century at the court of Lucknow’s ruler Wajid Ali Shah. It has very strong associations with kathak, North India’s...
The santoor is an ancient folk instrument thought to have originated in Persia, from where, according to some scholars, it made its way to India. But ancient Indian texts also refer to...
Author: Jameela Siddiqi A distinguished lineage of instrumentalists descends from India’s most renowned classical music maestro of the 20th century, Ustad Allauddin Khan, affectionately known as ‘Baba’. He reportedly lived to be...
Pandit Ramashreya Jha (11 August 1928 – 1 January 2009), affectionately known as Ramrang, was a distinguished composer, performer, and scholar of Hindustani classical music. Born into a musical family in Darbhanga, Bihar, he received early...
Words such as ‘young’ or ‘child’ seem to stand in stark contrast with millennia-old Indian classical music derived from the ancient Vedas. Surely, such traditional ritualistic knowledge, devotional music and complexity of...
Individual expression is highly valued in an artist, and this is no different within the context of Indian classical music. But whilst being allowed to develop a personal style, the Indian music...