Pioneer Works is excited to present the 14th annual Ragas Live Festival featuring 24 hours of transcendent music in the Pioneer Works Main Hall. The entire program will be broadcast live on video at Pioneer Works' Youtube & WKCR 89.9 FM in NYC (audio only).
For the 2025 festival, more than 50 artists and legendary maestros of the South Asian classical tradition will perform alongside groundbreaking contemporary artists in a musical journey through day and night.
Our surprise artists are L. Shankar, the legendary, 10-string violin player who first reached a global audience when he founded Shakti with John McLaughlin, and the ecstatic Qawwals from Pakistan, the Saami Brothers, whose family have been custodians of this music for 800 years. Highlights include two of the greatest living sitar players Shahid Parvez and Purbayan Chatterjee, a Zakir Hussain Tribute led by his Grammy-winning collaborators Sikiru Adepoju and V. Selvaganesh, the jaw-dropping violin virtuosity of Charumathi Raghuraman, and the exploratory electronics of eucademix (Yuka Honda).
About Ragas Live Festival
Ragas Live Festival was born as an in-studio radio broadcast at Columbia University’s WKCR in 2012 and immediately gained a global listening audience. Its annual presentation of 50–70 musicians — and its expansive curation of music inspired by the Indian classical tradition — became central to a movement that The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, and others have called “The Raga Renaissance.”
The event left the studio in 2016, becoming a live, in-person broadcast at Pioneer Works, where it has since cultivated a passionate following.
The event is inspired by raga, the classical music tradition from South Asia, where specific modes harmonize with the moods and energy of particular times of day, such as sunrise, sunset, or the darkest hours of the night. Master musicians from the raga tradition are presented alongside legends in ambient music, minimalism, jazz and global traditions.
Schedule
October 18
7:00 PM ARAJ: Ishaan Ghosh, S. Akash, Mehtab Ali, Pratik Singh & Vanraj
Shastri ( tabla, bansuri, sitar, vocals, sarangi)
8:25 PM Charumathi Raghuraman, Anantha R. Krishnan & Giridhar Udupa
(violin, mridangam, ghatam)
9:50 PM eucademix (Yuka Honda) (electronics)
10:50 PM Saami Brothers (Qawwali)
October 19
12:15 AM Light Over Shadow (Zakir Hussain Tribute): Sikiru Adepoju,
Selvaganesh, Ishaan Ghosh, and special guests (global percussion)
1:40 AM Arun Ramamurthy Trio - (Arun Ramamurthy, violin; Sameer Gupta,
drums; Damon Banks, bass)
2:55 AM Sanaan Mahboop (Afghan rubab)
4:00 AM Asif Khan, Karamat Khan Kalavant (vocal, tabla) (Ghazal set)
5:05 AM Vishnu Ramprasad and Praveen Narayan (navtar, tabla)
6:15 AM Radhika Samson & Tejas Tope, (surbahar, pakawaj)
7:45-8:35 Whispering Worlds w/ Aaron Shragge (John Hassell Tribute) (Aaron
Shragge -trumpet/shakuhachi/fx/composition; Luke Schwartz, guitar; Damon Banks, bass; Deric Dickens, drums)
9:05 AM Vinay Desai & Vivek Pandya (santoor, tabla)
10:05 AM Purbayan Chatterjee & Amit Kavthekar (sitar. tabla)
11:30 AM NESOM honors Allah Rakha and Zakir Hussain
12:30 PM Mandolin U. Rajesh & Swaminathan Selvaganesh (mandolin, kanjira)
1:55 PM Priya Purushothaman. Pratyush Goberdha, & Tejas Tope (vocal, sarangi, tabla)
3:10 PM Anand Avirmed – (Mongolian throat singing & horsehead fiddle)
3:50 PM Shahid Parvez & Nitin Mitta (sitar, tabla)
5:35 PM L.Shankar w/ Selvaganesh, Swaminathan Selvaganesh, Amit Kavthekar (10-string stereophonic Double Violin, kanjiras, tabla)
Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia (Palo Alto), NYC Radio Live, People of Rhythm Productions, and Brooklyn Raga Massive. Ragas Live Festival is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Beverage sponsorship provided by Yerba Madre
