Ragas Live Festival, New York City’s biggest annual music drop, will stage a triumphant return as a 24-hour live event at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works in October.

Featured artists will include: Sid Sriram, Cryo Baptista, Parvathy Baul, Qasim Naqvi, Hamid AlSaadi, Manik Khan, Samir LanGus

A 24-hour celebration of transcendent, spiritual music, the Ragas Live Festival is rooted in South Asia’s classical music, raga, which is unique in that specific modes are only played at specific times during the day.  The entire event will be broadcast on WKCR- FM, where it began as a 50 musician, in-studio broadcast in 2012.

This year’s festival includes Carnatic superstar Sid Sriram; the New York premiere of Parvathy Baul, a leading exponent of the mystical Baul sect of West Bengal; Brazilian percussion legend Cyro Baptista; and master of the Iraqi maqam, Hamid AlSaadi. Late night they’ll be analog synth explorations from Qasim Naqvi, and Kroba, and a tribute to Ali Akbar Khan on his 100th centennial featuring his son Manik Khan on sarod. As we approach the finale, Samir LanGus will invoke the ecstatic trance music of Gnawa with a large ensemble of Moroccan and New York musicians, while the Arun Ramamurthy Trio improvise Carnatic music in the context of a jazz trio.

Over the 24 hour period, the audience will also be treated to masters of the sitar, veena, bansuri sarangi and vocal in the classical raga tradition including a sunrise set from Samarth Nagarkar and a sunset performance from Saraswathi Ranganathan.

The live festival will take place within an immersive installation by pioneering film and video artist Charles Atlas, on a bespoke stage designed by artist Mika Tajima in collaboration with Chadha Ranch.

Artists Appearing at Ragas Live

Sid Sriram (Carnatic Vocal – Chennai, India)
Parvathy Baul (Vocal/Dance – W. Bengal, India)
Hamid AlSaadi (Iraqi Maqam Vocalist-Iraq)
Cyro Baptista (Percussion- Brazil)
Manik Khan (Sarod – San Fransisco)
Samir LanGus (Sintir//Vocals percussion and ensemble – Morocco/New York)
Amir ElSaffar (Analog Synth, Trumpet, New York)
Saraswathi Ranganathan (Veena – Chicago)
Jay Gandhi (Bansuri, New York)
Samarth Nagarkar (Vocal, New Jersey)
Arun Ramamurthy Trio (Carnatic Jazz Trio – New York)
Kroba (Saxophone/Analog Synth – New York)
Abhik Mukherjee (Sitar – New York)
Orakel (Kora, tabla – New York)
Quasim Naqvi (Analog Synth – New York)
Suhail Yusuf Khan (Saarangi-Connecticut)
Vinay Desai (Santoor -New York)
Salar Nader (Tabla, Los Angeles)
Shankh Lahiri (Tabla, Florida)