Winter Music Fests in India!

Winter Music Fests in India: Classical, electronica, fusion, rock, jazz!

 

by Madanmohan Rao

World Music Editor & RJ

December 24, 2009

http://twitter.com/MadanRao

 

 

December is a good month to immerse in a wide range of music festivals in India. Though many Indian cities tend to be in the grip of a “moral police” mentality which shuts down music performances by the ridiculously early hour of 11 pm, there is a still a lot of music for eager fans.

 

Bangalore had good Indian classical music and jazz in its annual festival (http://bengaluruhabba.co.in/2009/events). I caught all the evening jazz acts: Gerard Machado, Moon Arra, Global Unity, Maarten Visser, Interplay, and Dana Gillespie with the London Blues Band. Moon Arra’s Arab-Indian-jazz fusion pieces, the soaring vocals of Sonia Saigal in her jazzy rendition of “Roxanne,” Sanjay Divecha’s intricate guitar work, and Dana Gillespie’s gutsy lyrics backed by sizzling keyboards, guitar and harmonica really stood out.

 

I was in Delhi the weekend after that for India’s first international electronica festival, Global Groove (http://globalgroove.in). Delhi was also the host earlier in the month for the South Asian Bands Festival (www.sehernow.in).

 

The first day of Global Groove was unfortunately a washout with police shutting down the outdoor performance. There were some outstanding acts indoors the next day, such as Hamza (with Rajasthani folk instruments and a DJ), ModeSelektor (DJ duo from Berlin), Jalebee Cartel (percussion, bassist, 2 DJs), Kalyug (rap + DJ + Indian classical vocals) and Shaair & Funk (funk/punk rock)!

 

Back again in Bangalore I caught the last energetic act of the year by the Raghu Dixit Project (http://raghudixit.com), a talented band blending Kannada, Hindi and English lyrics in a rock and Sufi format. A colourful on-stage entertainer, Raghu Dixit is a microbiologist and dancer!

 

And a great way to end the year of course is at the Sunburn Festival in Goa, December 26-27 (www.sunburn-festival.com), with two dozen DJs from around the world – hope I can make it to that event as well!

 

All the best to my readers and listeners for the rest of 2009, and catch you all in 2010!!

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.