How two women are connecting popular and Indian classical music through ragas
One fine day over a cup of coffee, two friends decided they wanted to do something about making classical music accessible to a larger audience given their mutual love for classical music and storytelling. This is how HumRaag was conceived.
The two women, Chitra Srikrishna and Shoba Narayan, are well-known and respected in their fields.
Chitra Srikrishna is a Carnatic musician. She started learning music at the age of five, and performing when she was in college. She has been performing since the last 20 years. Chitra has trained from renowned teachers all across India, and also writes for newspapers.Shoba Narayan, on the other hand, is a journalist and award-winning author of Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes and Return to India. She contributes regularly to popular newspapers.
HumRaag traces the roots of classical music in popular music. Chitra identifies the raga from a popular song and sings a classical number based on the same raga. Shoba is the sutradhar who talks about the music, its composition and other thoughts on the music via story, poety, etc.
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It uses a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is constructed. Indian classical music is set in raga, and so are many popular compositions we often love to hum.HumRaag is still in its early days bringing classical, devotional, film, folk and popular music to its audience with a dash of poetry and storytelling.
After their first public performance in March last year in the Bangalore International Centre, the show went on the road from September 2014 onwards. They have performed in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Pune. Catch their next show in Bangalore on 18th January 2015.
Here is a video of their performance