London Baul and Vaishnav music festival begins on 28 April

A four day Baul and Vaishnav music festival will begin on 28 April in East London.

RadhaRaman Society, one of the prominent promoters of oriental folk music in the West, organises this art event in partnership with London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

The festival will kick off at the Poplar Union in East London on 28 April and will tour to Rich Mix on 29 April, then at Kobi Nazrul Centre of Brick lane on 5 May at 6.30 pm each day. The festival will also be hosted at Nehru Centre in central London on 4 May at 6 pm.

Baul and Vaishnav are considered as the two exotic and powerful genres of world music.

Highlights of the festival include talk on Baul and Vaishnav music, short films on Baul and Vaishnav philosophy and vocal recital of the medieval and pre-medieval music by the prominent performers from all across the country.

The singers include the best Bengali folk singer Gouri Chowdhury, Baul Sazzad Noor, Baul Shahid, Baul Khalique Mollik, Baul Hashi Rani, Vaishnav dancer Sohel Ahmed and his group as well as  Vaishnav recital by the group disciples of the top Hindustani classical vocalist in Europe Chandra Chakraborty.   

“This is a unique festival of extremely ecstatic and philosophically exuberant performances of two exotic and powerful genres of world music,” poet and the curator of the festival Ahmed Kaysher said.

He also said that the festival is gradually expanding its wings in terms of connecting non-Asian audiences and getting critically acclaimed by ethnomusicologists and prominent academicians.

“Because of its power of ecstasy and the message of profound humanity, this music is being popular at this end of the world while under extinction even in Indian sub-continent,” he added.