SPOTLIGHT
RAAG-MALA TORONTO’S SEASON OF MANY FIRSTS
Mohamed Khaki with Troilee and Moisilee Dutta and their guru Pandit Partho Sarothy.
By MOHAMED KHAKI
As Raag-Mala Toronto’s Programming Director, it is not necessary for me to go to India, especially these days because social media and tele-connectivity obviate the need for travel for me to be able to do my job.
My (self-financed) travel to India annually is admittedly to attend lots of live concerts and get to hear some great artistes who rarely travel overseas, if at all (Pandit Venkatesh Kumar being one). And to be entirely honest, to get away from the Toronto winters!
Getting to hear (and sometimes to meet) up-and-coming artistes is also a big bonus. Less than two weeks into my latest visit, I have been to six concerts, some featuring artistes that I heard on stage for the first time. Two of them are Suchismita and Debopriya Chatterjee, the “Flute Sisters” who performed a lovely raag Behag at the Swara Zankar Festival in Pune as part of the felicitation of their guru, the legendary maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. I am happy to report that Toronto audiences will get to see and hear them in the fall of this year.
The violinist Ragini Shankar, another first timer for Raag-Mala (in April), will be performing with her sister Nandini, mother Sangeeta Shankar and grandmother (a legendary musician) Dr. N. Rajam at the St. Xaviers Festival in Mumbai, that I hope to attend in late January. I had the good fortune of listening to Ragini perform a confident and lyrical raag Bageshree at Doverlane Festival in Kolkata two years ago, with the Toronto favourite Subhajyoti Guha on tabla.
The British sitarist Rupa Panesar will also perform at the April concert. While she has previously played in Toronto, we are excited to have her on the Raag-Mala stage for the first time.
In a season of many firsts, the “Sarod Sisters”, Troilee and Moisilee Dutta, will perform in May. The seed for their Canadian tour was planted when I heard them (also at Doverlane), and where it was lovely to meet them and their guru Pandit Partho Sarothy. We hope to have Parthoji perform once again for us in the near future.
To complete the list of female artistes featured in 2025 is one of my favourites – Smt Manjiri Asanare-Kelkar, who hews closely to the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana gayaki. Manjiriji will perform for us in September.
Our 2025 season opener in March is with the much-loved sitar player, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan. He will be performing with his son Shakir Khan (another first for us) and the whiz tabla nawaz Yashwant Vaish-nav.
Another raag sangeet stalwart, santoor maestro Pandit Satish Vyas, will perform at the June concert with Pandit Mukundraj Deo on tabla. Satishji’s student Jonathan Voyer will perform on the santoor with fellow Montrealer Shawn Mativetsky on tabla. This concert is part of Raag-Mala Toronto’s series “Sowing the Seeds of Raag Sangeet in Canada”.
The “Flute Sisters”, Suchismita and Debopriya Chatterjee.
Also part of the series is our final concert of the 2025 season, featuring Pandit Shantanu and Smt Durba Bhattacharyya, along with daughter Mitra (another first-timer!), and Panditji’s students, and Toronto’s own Andrew and Jonathan Kay (the “Sax Bros”) and Justin Gray.
Details on Raag-Mala’s exciting season will be posted on the website raagmala.ca.
• Mohamed Khaki is a member of the Raag-Mala team.