India’s first multi-disciplinary arts event, Serendipity Arts Festival 2019 launches its fourth edition in Goa from the 15-  22 December 2019 , with over 100 dynamic projects highlighting India’s rich traditions of music, dance and theatre, alongside culinary arts, craft, photography and visual arts exhibitions.

The music programme, curated by Aneesh Pradhan , one of India’s leading tabla players and Sneha Khanwalkar, a leading Bollywood music director, in its latest edition will explore a range of Hindustani andfolk music traditions, in addition to Hindi poetry and the art-rock genre. This will include visual and auralinstallations , offering visitors a unique sound experience that showcases the synergy between sound,visuals and technology. The music programming will be showcasing known national and internationalmusicians as well as groups from Goa, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Bengal and Manipur.

Highlights of this year’s music projects include Sadaarang , a concert underlining the melodic, rhythmic and poetic variety experienced in Sadaarang (18th century Hindustani musical composer and artist, Niyamat Khan’s) compositions; Bandish Antaakshari, a performance-based game, portraying compositions ( bandish ) from the Hindustani art music tradition through antaakshari; Dhun Mela, a folk song extravaganza bringing together groups of musicians and dancers from various states; Serendipity Soundscapes, where the music curators are invited to bring the unique sounds of the subcontinent together; River Raga, Hindustani classical music concerts taking place on a ferry cruise along the Mandovi river; and Sound Interventions, a multi-artist project experimenting with interactivity, sound and performance-based installations.

Other performances include an evening of jazz with Louiz Banks and Braz Gonzalves ; Dastaan Live , a genre-defying art-rock project; a performanceby Floy Krouchi , bassist and composer of electro-acoustic music;renowned musician, songwriter composer DJ Karsh Kale; and renowned playback singer for Indian films, Rekha Bhardwaj. The Neemrana Music, Foundation will also be conducting a workshop titled Discover Your Opera Voice where world-renowned voice coach Jasmin Martorell and opera singer Priya Wacziarg will conduct.

The Festival will also be organising concerts in the park by a variety of musicians and bands, with genres ranging from jazz to fusion, pop to retro, and blues to funk.

Talking about this year’s music programming, Smriti Rajgarhia, Director, Serendipity Arts Foundation, said, “The Music projects have always been diverse and experimental at Serendipity Arts Festival. This year, apart from having an exciting line-up of popular headlining acts combining a variety of genres, the curation will also showcase the diverse musical roots of the region, explored through traditional rhythm and melodies”.

Speaking of the aspects of his music curation at Serendipity Arts Festival 2019, Aneesh Pradhan said , “The arts have traditionally been regarded as a composite whole in India, but over a period of time we seem to have lost the dialogue between them. Serendipity Arts Festival brings to the fore the possibility of reviving an interdisciplinary approach while not diluting each of the arts. As a result, practitioners and audiences can witness experimental works in this direction alongside the more traditional presentations. In fact, in some cases the traditional performances are also located in new contexts, thus providing fresh challenges to performers.”

Talking further about his curation Aneesh Pradhan said, “At Serendipity Arts Festival 2019, I am curating projects that adopt an interdisciplinary approach in terms of highlighting the intersection between poetry and music. In the case of Hindustani music, this intersection is clearly seen in the compositional works of vaggeyakars or composers who bring together poetry, melody and rhythm, unlike works in some other categories of music where the melodic composition is done by one person and the poetic element is introduced by another. We will explore this aspect through the work of Sadaarang, a prominent eighteenth century vaggeyakar. This intersection will also be experienced in Bandish Antaakshari, which is a music-based game focused on compositions from Hindustani music genres. In Dhun Mela, we will look at  folk song repertoire from different regions. This repertoire though largely createdby communities rather thansingle individuals, also brings together poetry and music in a seamless manner feature traditional musicalforms and their practitioners. And finally, as part of this year’s edition of Serendipity Soundscapes, we willinclude verses written or adapted from previous centuries as well as those written in a contemporarycontext. The music for this project will have diverse elements including a strong inclusion of electronicmusic”.

Event: Serendipity Arts Festival

Dates: 15^th – 22^nd December 2019

Place: Goa