Where Culture is Nurtured

A tanpura, veena, mridangam, ghatam, bansuri and violin arranged with a brass lamp against an ornamented coffee-coloured wall

Concerts

Every concert carries a tradition forward.

Saptami presents Carnatic and Hindustani programmes, gives artists a stage and an audience, and keeps the concert form at the centre of how this music is learned.

Watch

Concerts on video

Recordings and short films, held apart from the listings above so a performance is easy to find on its own.

About Music

Carnatic and Hindustani

Saptami's work begins with the music itself — two classical traditions, the vocal and instrumental disciplines inside them, and the concerts through which they reach an audience.

Carnatic Music

The classical tradition of South India, built on raga and tala, with a strong emphasis on composition and on improvisation within a fixed form. Concerts are typically led by a vocalist with violin and mridangam accompaniment.

Hindustani Music

The classical tradition of North India, known for extended raga development that unfolds slowly across a performance, and for the gharana system through which its lineages are transmitted.

Music begins where the possibilities of language end.

On the reach of sound

Disciplines

Many ways into the same tradition

Discipline

Vocal

The voice is the reference point for both traditions; instrumental phrasing is taught in relation to it.

Discipline

Instrumental

String, wind and plucked instruments carry melodic lines with their own idioms and repertoire.

Discipline

Percussion

Rhythm is a discipline in its own right, with solo forms, spoken syllables and long cycles.

The instruments

Veena Mridangam Tanpura Flute Violin Ghatam