NCPA Announces 4th Edition of ONE WORLD MANY MUSICS, 1/11

"We're trying to bridge man-made divides through music. Even if language is foreign, music instantly connects," said Dr. Suvarnalata Rao, Head - Programming (Indian Music), NCPA, when the NCPA decided to curate a festival of contemporary Indian music expressions; a showcase of varied musical traditions reaffirming the peaceful co-existence of cultural and artistic plurality.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), India's premiere arts and culture institution, is back with the fourth edition of One World Many Musics (OWMM): Celebrating Artistic Plurality, featuring the renowned and much-loved Indian vocalist, Shubha Mudgal and her band, Koshish on Friday, January 11, 2013 at 7 pm at the Tata Theatre, NCPA.

The world that we live in is buzzing with myriad traditions and musical forms across various indigenous cultures. Music from around the world exerts wide cross-cultural influence as styles influence one another.

One World Many Musics (OWMM): Celebrating Artistic Plurality, a contemporary Indian music festival, strives to bring varied musical forms and sounds together traversing age groups, cultures and boundaries. OWMM celebrates the power of music as a healing force that promotes cross-cultural understanding and awareness and reminds people of all cultures and religions that we share a common humanity.

Each year, the festival's performances and artistes are selected for their efforts to combine world music with Indian sound, while providing the platform for musicians to experiment with their own music. OWMM represents India's ever-growing diverse pool of musicians, rich in talent and tradition while holding competence to go beyond the classical to create new-age contemporary Indian music.

Koshish, the band consists of Shubha Mudgal (vocals), Sudhir Nayak (harmonium), Murad Ali (sarangi), Benoni Soans (Drums), Aneesh Pradhan (tabla), Tony Dias (keyboards), Bertie D'silva (bass), Pratap Rath (percussion). The repertoire includes pieces that borrow from diverse forms of music. Some pieces rely heavily on Hindustani classical forms; others show a marked influence of jazz and blues, while still others borrow from qawwali. These pieces will be interspersed with some of the well-known Indi-pop successes of Shubha Mudgal's repertoire. In terms of the literary content, the songs have verses by celebrated poets like Gulzar sahab, Faiz sahab, Sahir Ludhianvi and others.

Having conceptualized and curated OWMM since 2009, Dr. Suvarnalata Rao, Head - Programming (Indian Music), says, "Nomenclature like 'world' and 'fusion' has been applied to music that has been of cross-cultural nature. While we aren't keen to apply any tags to OWMM, one can point towards the similarities in spirit and intent of cross-boundary music that the NCPA seeks to showcase through this annual endeavour."

Speaking about Koshish, Shubha Mudgal says, "As the name suggests, we are trying to create a harmonious musical dialogue between the artistes who are geniuses in their own art form. It also gives us an opportunity to listen, study and discover diverse art forms. We create compositions which reflect diversity."

This year, OWMM is inviting young student bands to send in their entries and win a chance to perform at its 2013 edition at the NCPA, right before the performance by Koshish. The last date for sending in the entries for the OWMM Bang Baja Contest is January 4, 2013.

NCPA OWMM - Band Baja Contest
Become a part of the NCPA's One World Many Musics annual festival which has featured musical youth icons like Indian Ocean, Midival Punditz, Shri and Srinivas among others. Interpret "One World Many Musics" in your musical style & Win* a chance to perform @ the NCPA OWMM 2013 before the main concert by Shubha Mudgal & band Koshish.

The last date for sending your entries for the Bang Baja Contest is January 4, 2013.
Rules of participation:

• All members of the participating band must be students & must have a valid college ID
• Each band can have a maximum of 8 members
• The band must include at least 2 Indian instruments
• The entries must include a brief CV of the band with contact details of all band members & an audio sample of not more than 5 minutes
• All entries must reach us by January 4, 2013
• The winning band must perform at least one song in a regional language
• The performance should not last more than 15 minutes
• An acoustics performance will be preferred
• No profanity allowed