About this Event
This September, our London Ragas baithak brings Pandit Debasis Chakroborty to The Tate Institute in Silvertown, with Ustad Akram Khan on tabla. Chakroborty plays Indian slide guitar in the Senia-Maihar line of Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, the musician who brought the instrument into Hindustani classical music.
He teaches as Associate Professor of Music at Mangalayatan University and has spent more than twenty-five years on concert stages across Australia, the USA, Southeast Asia, and Europe, including the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in 2015 and 2024. The Ministry of External Affairs empanels him as an ICCR artist.
Ustad Akram Khan is the seventh generation of his family to play tabla in the Ajrada Gharana. He first learned from his great-grandfather, Ustad Mohammad Shafi Khan, then from Ustad Niazu Khan, and he still teaches more than fifteen of the gharana's classic kaydas. He gave his first recital in Lucknow at seventeen, made his international debut in Norway in 1987, and has played more than eleven thousand concerts since.
Every Ragas evening asks you to pause. Indian classical tradition treats sound, Shabd, as a way to restore balance in ourselves and in the room we share. Slide guitar suits that work. One note travels into the next without a break, closer to a voice than to a fretted string, and a long alap can settle a room the way slow breathing settles the mind. Sit close and put the phone away.
If you are in London or nearby, do join us. If you need access, contact us.
Doors open at 5:45 PM. Music starts at 6:00 PM.
Audience Policy:
- Unauthorised filming or photography is not permitted.
- Mobile phones (including texting) are not allowed during the event. We kindly ask for your cooperation. Thank you!
Event venue & nearby stays
The Tate Institute, 1 Wythes Road, London, United Kingdom
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