Night in the Medina  I 

Evening Ragas

Throw open the doors to an enchanting night of Indian music and abandon yourself to an atmosphere both contemplative and exhilarating.
The gifted artists for this special night come from Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Jodhpur and Jaipur, as well as from cities of the Indian diaspora: London, Manchester and Toronto. Most of these young masters of Hindu and Carnatic music are performing for the first time in Morocco and for some, it is their first performance outside the sub-continent.

Dar Adiyel – 18.00

Rageshri Das – khyal  songs – Kolkata

With Ustad Sabir Khan, tabla

And Alla Rakha Kalavant, sarangi

From the Gharana tradition of Varanasi, Rageshri Das is the first performer this evening. Her proud beauty recalls portraits of acclaimed begums – those emancipated women who were rather irreverent. As soon as Das begins singing, we are immediately entranced: her light tone is almost frivolous, then plunges suddenly into depths not usually found in women of only thirty. The work underlying this talent is tangible. Her voice breaks in a language that reveals the emotion of the raga. She instils feeling into it in successive waves, and gathers us up with her wonderful improvisation.

This music is within her. Her father, Purnendu Das, trained with Pandit Mahadev Prasad Mishra, a fine exponent of khyal and thumri song with a great knowledge of the bandishes (composed melody, the literary element of the raga) and a contemporary of the glorious Siddeshwar Devi and Rasoolan Bai, who looked very much like Rageshri.
Rageshri learned this type of Varanasi Gharana from the age of 8, joining Pandit Mohan Lal Mishra and his son Sri Deepak Mishra, with whom she received rigorous talim (training). Twenty-two years later she is shaped by Guru-Shishya Parampara, a traditional mentoring system of learning that ensures the survival of the art.

international premiere

As part of  “Homage to India.”

Picture ©Pranay Gupta