Philharmonia Orchestra Reveals Soumik Datta As Artist In Residence For The 23/24 Season

The Philharmonia Orchestra announced that Soumik Datta will be its Artist in Residence for the 2023/24 Season. Now in its third year, the Artist in Residence initiative has previously featured House of Absolute (21/22) and Love Ssega (22/23). 

 

Soumik will be working with the Philharmoina and its musicians throughout the next 12 months. The residency will culminate in a performance at the end of the season which will feature a mixture of (Western) classical and South Asian musicians, instruments and music styles. Soumik will be exploring themes relating to refugees and asylum seekers, diaspora, and social and racial inequality. His talents will bridge Indian music with contemporary composition and storytelling using a variety of art forms.

 

Soumik Datta said: 'Making music is an act of service for me. To be able to ignite human imagination and allow audiences to project their thoughts, feelings and worries onto my music fills me with gratitude and purpose. Now, as Philharmonia's Artist in Residence, I hope to expand that fabric of sound, challenging myself and the Orchestra to hold our diverse listeners in a warm, inclusive, sonic embrace.' 

 

Teddy Prout, Director of Learning & Engagement at the Philharmonia Orchestra said: 'We are delighted to have this opportunity to work with Soumik, a visionary artist who will bring so much to our artistic and creative work, both on the stage and in our communities. In a world where there continues to be more that divides us than unites, we are pleased to have appointed Soumik to explore how we can push the arts to be more relevant than ever.'

 

Thorben Dittes, Chief Executive at the Philharmonia Orchestra said: 'I'm so excited to see what Soumik and the Philharmonia musicians will create together during his year as our Artist in Residence. He is not just a master musician, but a master collaborator, and he shares our vision of music as a force for bringing people together and transforming the world into a better place for everyone.' 

 

'One of the biggest new music talents in Britain' (Vogue) and winner of the 2022 Aga Khan Music Award, Soumik Datta is a visionary musician with the ability to cross boundaries, cultures and art forms. A sarod virtuoso, bandleader, TV presenter and Artistic Director of the Soumik Datta Arts charity, his work embraces traditional and contemporary art forms to address the urgent issues of our times.
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One of the last disciples of the sarod legend, Pt. Buddhadev Das Gupta, Soumik is now acclaimed for extending the reach of the sarod, collaborating with refugees, mental health and climate change practitioners as well as artists from disparate global traditions including - Beyonce, Jay-Z, Nitin Sawhney, Akram Khan, Anoushka Shankar and BBC Singers.

Soumik's latest production Hope Notes weaves real life stories of refugees with sarod, strings and electronica. The critically acclaimed work co-produced by Southbank Centre raises awareness about displacement and refugee mental health issues.

In 2022, to commemorate 75 years of Indian independence, Soumik was commissioned by BBC Singers to compose a new score for choir and sarod titled Awaaz - or "voice" in Urdu. In the same year, the British Indian restaurant brand Dishoom commissioned Soumik to compose new sufi inspired music for their first of a kind 75 years: Partition events.

Responding to the climate crisis, Soumik directed and scored Songs of the Earth, an award-winning animation film about a young climate refugee from Bengal searching for her father across burning forests and melting glaciers. Commissioned by the British Council, the film premiered at the UN climate conference (COP26) and at No.10 Downing Street.

As a television host, Soumik presented Rhythms of India, a BBC 4 series exploring the classical, folk and contemporary music of India. Previously, Soumik and his brother JIJO (filmmaker) directed Tuning 2 You a six part series for Channel 4 filming the stories of under-represented musicians from rural India.

During lockdown, Soumik produced the YouTube series Silent Spaces filmed and recorded inside 8 cultural venues that were closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Venues like the British Museum and Royal Albert Hall opened their doors to Soumik and his creative team who broke the silence of these iconic cultural spaces with new music videos that addressed the mental health issues of the creative community during the time. The project was accompanied by a behind the scenes radio show commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and employed over 80 out of work musicians and dancers through the Soumik Datta Arts charity.

Soumik's previous highlights include performing at BBC Proms, Glastonbury Festival, WOMAD, Singapore Arts Festival, St Paul's Cathedral and compositional commissions for British Film Institute and Shakespeare's Globe.

 

Find out all about Soumik Datta at his website https://www.soumikdatta.com/

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