Recorded at Darbar Festival 2019, on 13th October, at the Barbican Centre, London.

Musicians:
- Pandit Budhaditya Muckerjee (sitar)
- Soumen Nandy (tabla)

Raag Darbari Kanada; Thaat: Asavari; Samay: Midnight

This performance surpasses all and perches itself on the top layer of Darbar’s presentations because of the uncompromising way Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee immerses himself into the awakening of the Ragas’ emotions and the way he delivers them as a representative of the Imdadkhani gharana.

“Pandit Mukherjee, according to me, is a musicians’ musician – someone who has transcended not just the disciplinary or performance stratum but has also established himself at an extraordinary level. This is why every musician looks up to and draws inspiration from him. It is perhaps an achievement in itself that in an epic setting like that of the Barbican Centre in London, an Indian classical musician like Pandit Mukherjee had performed Darbari Kanada which is considered as the king of all the ragas,” says Sandeep Virdee OBE, creative Director of Darbar.

It is also worthy to note that Pandit Mukherjee is perhaps the only representative of the Imdadkhani gharana who does not belong to its blood clan but has all the same established himself as a strong stake-holder of this gharana.

As an audience, here’s an interesting fact for you to know – Pandit Mukherjee has completely defied the time classification in performing these two ragas. He has reversed their order and yet, comfortably brought time down to its knees by establishing the spirit of both Darbari Kanada and Nand appositely. Notice his short, crisp introduction in the beginning of the concert where he speaks about the actual time of performing Darbari Kanada. Because of practical reasons related to the Barbican venue-hiring norms, the concert halls need to be deserted by 9:30 pm every Sunday. This obviously limits the possibility of the presentation of late-night and midnight Ragas such as Darbari Kanada. However, on that day, Pandit Mukherjee along with Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma set a precedent by defying the time theory and presenting ragas much before their technical time of presentation.
Accompanying Pandit Mukherjee on the tabla is Soumen Nandy, a young and emerging tabla player in the Indian classical music scene, also from Kolkata. Nandy has done justice to his stage-time with a praiseworthy accompaniment and by filling in his solo portions with dexterity.

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