Spirit and Sound: A Concert Series presents: Singing to Krishna in Court: Rethinking God, Gender, and Genre in North Indian Classical Music

Featuring performances by:

Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, lead vocalist
Sanjay Deshpande, Tabla
Tanmay Deochake, Harmonium

Followed by a panel discussion with:

Professor Akeel Bilgrahmi, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
Professor Shayoni Mitra, Assistant Professor of Theater, Barnard College
Tyler Williams, PhD Candidate and Teaching Fellow at MESAAS, Columbia University

Hosted and curated by:
Yogi Trivedi, PhD candidate in Religion, Columbia University

Columbia University's Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life presents Spirit and Sound: A Concert Series, four musical events throughout the 2013-14 academic year from different religious and cultural traditions, which broadly looks at how religion, faith, identity, community, and the political intermingle in the musical expressions of faith. Two concerts were presented in the fall: the first on the African-American Ring Shout, the second on Middle Eastern Religious music of Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions. This spring, Sound and Spirit will present an event on the Bhakti musical tradition in Hinduism, and an evening of Eastern Orthodox Christian music.

North Indian Classical or Hindustani Music has a long history of integration and syncretism. This multifarious identity, however, has commonly led musicians and scholars to think of Hindustani music in terms of binaries: religious or secular, bhakti or riti, classical or vernacular, textual or performative, Indic or Islamicate, Hindu or Muslim.

Join us for an intimate performance of and conversation about Hindustani Classical and Bhakti Music, in which we aim to rethink such a bifurcated classification and approach.

Ashwini Bhide Deshpande is one of the finest female vocalists in India today. Her repertoire includes various genres of classical music, including khayal, thumri, bhajans, andabhangs, making her versatile, soulful performances an outstanding example of the syncretic formation of North Indian or Hindustani music, and an ideal case study of which to ask serious questions relating to religion, music, and public life in early modern, colonial, and contemporary India.

The performance will be followed by a panel discussion led by Yogi Trivedi, a Hindustani vocalist, journalist, and PhD Candidate in Religion at Columbia University.