India's Classical Music Marathon

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - India's Classical Music Marathon

Aditya Chakrabortty reports on the fate of India's all-night classical music concert.

4 Extra Debut. Aditya Chakrabortty is in Kolkata to find out if the all-night music conference can survive in an era of short attention spans. From 2016.

Aditya Chakrabortty journeys to Kolkata and into the mythology of one of India's most precious musical traditions.

Over the course of an all-night classical music concert – or 'conference' – we hear some of the best Indian classical musicians on the planet describe the intricacies of their art, and explain why it might not last much longer in a culture short of attention and keen for quick satisfaction.

At the Uttarpara Sangeet Chakra Conference, on the bank of the river Ganges just north of Kolkata, sitarists, tabla-players, vocalists and other instrumentalists start at 8pm and try to outplay each other until 7 o’clock in the morning, to an audience of nearly 3,000. In doing so, they reenact a tradition central to Indian classical music, which was based on such a competitive tradition with artists battling each other in front of a royal court. 

Aditya meets some of the audience members and musicians trying to keep the all-night conference alive, including some of Indian classical music’s biggest names – Shahid Parvez, Tanmoy Bose and Ajoy Chakrabarty, as well as the Kolkata-based writer and classically trained singer Amit Chaudhuri.


Produced by Eve Streeter

A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in July 2016.

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