Ragas Live Festival is an epic 24-hour, 24-set event featuring over 60 world-class musicians. A celebration of what The New York Times calls “the Raga Renaissance, flowering in Brooklyn,”. The event features both traditional Indian Classical music and contemporary cross-cultural collaborations. Highlights include the Harvard Ritual Ensemble (Vijay Iyer, Rajna Swaminathan, Yosvany Terry, Ganavya); Max ZT and Karsh Kale; Mitali Bhawmik; Navatman Music Collective & Bulgarian Voices Trio; and Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Coltrane Raga Tribute.

Roughly meaning “to color the mind,” India’s classical music is unique. In that its modes are only meant to be played at certain times of day; the music harmonizes not only with the other instruments but also with the moods associated with, for example, sunrise or midnight. Inspired by this unique system, a community of 50 musicians descended upon radio station WKCR-FM in 2012 to bring listeners worldwide on a 24-hour journey of sound. Now in its seventh year, Ragas Live Festival brings this harmonizing, immersive experience to Pioneer Works.

Ragas Live Retrospective features 24 of the greatest moments from the first 6 years of the festival, a 15 hour opus including an original raga from Pt. Krishna Bhatt; global collaborations (Afrika Meets India); large symphonic works (Go: Organic Orchestra with Brooklyn Raga Massive); new directions in jazz and Carnatic music (Arun Ramamurthy Trio, Akshara); Chamber Raga (Karavika) and ambient experiments (Unstruck Sound) alongside transcendent classical performances by Jay Gandhi, Mitali Bhawmik, Abhik Mukherjee, Samarth Nagarkar and many others.