Ragini Festival in collaboration with RASA & Heart of Art extends an invitation to the ‘weary traveler’ to commune with us & bathe in the poetry and songs of the mystic poet, weaver, Bhakti Saint- Kabir Das. Somewhere between the holy & the heretical, Kabir unveils the paradoxes of existence through lyrics written in Hindi, Avadhi, Braj & Bhojpuri. Singer, Shubha Varma will sing songs from this repertoire interspersed with classical bandishes and taranas, accompanied by Camila Celin on sarod/guitar, Roshni Samlal on tabla & featuring poems and translations read by poet, Ramya Ramana.
Singer: Shubha Varma
Sarod Player:Camila Celin
Poet: Ramya Ramana
Tabla Player: Roshni Samlal
Sarod/Guitar:
Camila Celin began playing guitar at age nine. For several years, she has been doing intensive studies in the Indian sarod, in Kolkata with sarod player Sougata Roy Choudhury and in New York with sitar maestro Pandit Krishna Bhatt. In 2009 she was nominated for a Grammy for best world music album in collaboration with slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya. She has been an active performer in her native Colombia, the U.S. and India. Camila has composed music for several films, for theater as well as for commercials and lives between New York City and Kolkata, India.
Vocal:
Shubha Verma started learning music from a very early age, and before she even finished high school she had finished her masters in Indian classical vocal music and earned many prestigious awards in music including the Sangeeta Natak Academy award. Her first Guru Shree Durga Das Mukherjee a direct disciple of Pandit Omkarnath Thakur ji, challenged her parents when she was only eight “you can try to make Shubha anything you want, but mark my words, she will be a musician”. In 2009 she joined the Pandit Jasraj Institute of music in New Jersey, where she performed and studied music rigorously for over 15 years and was awarded Mewati Pradeept. Her BadeGuruji Pandit Jasraj ji is her inspiration for continuing to strive for excellence in musical expression. Shubha is a practicing surgeon and a passionate musician who is committed to the cause of empowering musicians as well as building permanent web based archives of our musical traditions that will outlast this and multiple generations. She believes that it is our creative arts that keep us in touch with our source energy. She is the cofounder of FABA a not for profit organisation: For Artists by Artists.
Tabla:
Roshni Samlal is a New York-based tabla player, DJ, producer, curator and poet of Trinidadian descent. As a classically trained tabla artist, Roshni performs traditional tabla solos, South Asian classical accompaniment, jazz and chamber composition. She also uses electronic music production and poetry as contexts to reframe the tabla solo within an experimental narrative lens. She is the lead curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the
further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. Her DJ sets are rooted in her diasporic heritage as a Trinidadian immigrant during the 90’s, Global club, Bollywood, Chutney, Soca, Electronics, Dancehall and Dub. Her work has been supported and showcased at GlobalFest, Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, True/False Film Festival, Brookfield Place, Rubin Museum, Accordions of the World Festival, Joe’s Pub(Working Group Member 2022-2023), New Music USA, Pioneer Works and Brooklyn Museum.