Indian composer Ricky Kej, who has been awarded the Grammy for three times, is getting ready for one of his largest live projects in his homeland. Mixing Indian traditional music orchestras electronic music and interactivity, Ricky since 2004, is working ahead of the world DAMROOH Dance To The Cosmic Spirit tour. The tour is going to take place on the roads throughout India between October and December, with confirmed concerts in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai, and in sessions in Ahmedabad and Chennai. The tour is being promoted in support of UNICEF.
The idea behind DAMROOH is based on the traditional Indian damru, an instrument closely linked with Lord Shiva. For Kej, the instrument is not solely related to India ‘s musical culture, he relates it to a longstanding nagging of relationship with notions of ecology, preservation, and coexistence. This concept seeks to marry spiritual ideas to this contemporary concert.
Compared to a standard music gig, DAMROOH is to be constructed as a completely seated, symphonic event; a chorus of musicians will play in the company of electronics, visuals, and technology, so that the audience should see the gig as a concert, not just a classical performance of musicians playing.
Kej’s work can be seen as part of his larger attitudes towards Indian music. In a recent interview he suggested that although there is a huge corpus of music history and culture in India, from classical to folk and independent artists, that audiences are perhaps not always sufficiently receptive to the music itself. He has cited the usage of the name a famed musician like Pandit Ravi Shankar, where despite the album covers and compositions, people are aware only of the name of the musician.
This has led Kej to think very differently about the promise of traditional Indian music in the future. He explains that people aren’t looking for just a performance, but an experience. As he sees it, musicians can work with producers and technologists to develop performances that keep traditional elements intact, but are improved with visual storytelling, increased involvement and contextual narrative.
The Grammys have had a notable influence on Kej’s opinions as well. As a three-time Grammy winner (for Winds of Samsara and Divine Tides), he has experience working in categories that allow for international artists to be voted into. His personal Grammy history has influenced how he feels Asian musicians should be treated.
Kej has recently challenged the usefulness of regional classifications in categorizing the tremendous diversity of music across Asia. Using the Grammys Asian category and BTS’ submission of Arirang as examples, he argued that he would like to see Asian artists given the chance to be for competition in more mainstream categories like ‘Best Pop Album’ or ‘Best Pop Performance’ where their music is appropriate. His whole point was that artistes should not be limited to the categories (defined mostly as based on geography).
His comments also testify to a more general notion that Indian music is attractive for people beyond the country’s cultural borders. Kej has earlier endorsed the idea that Indian classical music is already appreciated abroad, mentioning well-known names like Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain.
