Mahindra Percussion Festival 2026 Shows That Curation Is King

There’s something to be said for a festival that resists the urge to grow louder and bigger with each passing year, especially considering the competition. Having attended all four editions of the Mahindra Percussion Festival now, what’s become increasingly clear is that its curators understand (and swear by) quality over quantity.

The venue – Prestige Centre for Performing Arts (PCPA) – stood elegantly prepared for a two-day festival by promoters Hyperlink Brand Solutions and programmers Wobble Creative & Content. The #FeelTheBeat zone, where anyone could walk up and take a crack at a drum kit or any number of percussion instruments, keeps the energy going between sets. Outside of the auditorium area, food and beverage stalls and picnic-style seating make it cozy for what is essentially just over a 1,000-capacity venue.

They’ve not changed much from the previous editions at PCPA, but if we think back to the first edition in 2023 at Jayamahal Palace, the Mahindra Percussion Festival is now fully focused on Indian practitioners rather than keeping the scope global. That original ambition — to make the festival a truly international congregation of rhythm — hasn’t quite been recaptured, and while that may be with good reason, we all know international names always add heft to any festival lineup.

Mahesh Kale’s Journey of Devotion and Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman’s Agility

The first day opened with Nada Pravaham, led by the legendary Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman on mridangam, who was joined by tabla artist Ishaan Ghosh, N. Hariharan on konnakol, and drummer Shravan Samsi. The four artists were grasping rhythm through entirely different means, yet finding common ground. For a nonagenarian (“Age is just a number,” as he commented on stage), Sivaraman remains sharp and more than a little witty. When Ghosh finished a high-energy solo, Sivaraman offered a wholesome thumbs up that landed like a benediction from percussion royalty.

Just as the mridangam ended the last performance, it also opened vocalist Mahesh Kale’s performance titled Yatra. Storytelling was front and center at the Mahindra Percussion Festival by now, and Kale let his accompanists take the lead for quite some time before he stepped onto the stage. While it’s a fitting way to kick off a percussion-focused festival performance with mridangam, tabla, drum and konnakol solos, it stretched a tad too long before Kale began singing.

He posed (and answered) the question of what a classical vocalist was doing at a percussion festival. His Bhakti Yatra framed itself as an imagined pilgrimage across India — Rajasthan to Ayodhya, Kashi to the south — tracing saints and their music: Meerabai, Tulsidas, Raskhan, Kabir via Kumar Gandharva, and a Carnatic composition by Sadasiva Brahmendra. There were a few technical glitches just before he took the journey from the Arpan phase, but they were quickly forgotten. His vocal agility is undeniable, and his commitment to audience participation — asking the crowd to sing, making them pledge to sing more, arguing that if one in six people on earth are Indian and can sing classically, the form will endure — could read as indulgent on another night. Here, it felt powerful and fitting. He went on until 10:30, closing with a collaboration with Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman that played out like two generations of Classical musicians having an easy, unhurried conversation.

Women Who Drum and Stories from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal

The second evening opened on a more charged note. While some in the audience had their phones out to stream the T20 World Cup final between India and New Zealand, the stage had other ideas: it gave them Women Who Drum, a commission that made its debut at the Mahindra Percussion Festival.

Harpist and singer Nush Lewis‘s spoken word performance set the tone, exploring empowerment in the face of patriarchy with a vengeant streak that didn’t flinch. Percussionists Swarupa Ananth and Charu Hariharan took the lead with thunderous drumwork, joined by Shalini Mohan’s fluid bass, Amrithavarshini Manishankar on thavil and Lewis on harp, threading through journeys both euphoric and introspective. The pairing of the thavil with the harp felt like a deliberate provocation, a dismantling of what is assumed to be conventionally feminine. Airy, jazzy passages gave way to powerful rhythmic climaxes. They closed with an adaptation of Nush Lewis’s “Lament,” renamed “She,” as a tribute to the women who walked so that they could run.

Praveen Sparsh‘s Parai Awakens – Unreserved Live offered a different kind of politics: the politics of belonging. Built around material from his album Unreserved, the set featured tracks like “Savari,” a love letter to walking through Chennai. Songs like “Fly,” “Rain God,” “Bird Song,” and the more dancefloor-friendly title track added to the narrative flow. The high point, though, was the improvised drum circle where Sparsh used the crowd’s clapping as a kind of metronome, and the group, including parai player Deepan N., built it up from there. Konnakol, cajon, and mridangam solos unlocked a new tempo. Deepan made a short speech in Tamil before the final track, which Sparsh translated to reiterate that the parai is open to all. More than speech, this was shown throughout their performance.

Bickram Ghosh closed the festival with Drums of the East, also focusing on the power of folk drums. Six dhaak drum players – including leader Gokul Dhaaki – proceeded down the aisles before making a theatrical entrance set in folk percussive tradition, which Ghosh clearly reveres. With Ghosh on tabla, Gopal Barman on srikhol, sitarist Abhishek Mallick (whom Ghosh introduced as part of the Ravi Shankar gharana) and Ranjan De on Bengali dhol, the set moved from “Dance of Shiva” in raga jog to “The Homecoming” with in raga charukeshi, through a drum jugalbandi and even an intimate solo by Ghosh featuring mouth percussion, breathing, konnakol and playful storytelling that told us the everyday presence of percussion as a language, from the cadence in conversations to the rhythmic nature of syllables in names. Ghosh tapped his own chest to mimic a heartbeat and built furiously off that. He’s equally comfortable leading and ceding the spotlight, and the set was richer for it.

Four editions in, the Mahindra Percussion Festival has earned a particular trust. It doesn’t overpromise. There’s an instinct for programming the contemplative as well as the confrontational, ranging from artists who are classically rooted but open to experimentation, to the politically charged. There’s still room to push back towards that global ambition of the first edition, and an occasional willingness to let sets run a touch long remains a minor occupational hazard. But given there’s only a handful of other festivals in the country tapping into the rhythm, including Mumbai Drum Day and Kolkata International Drum Festival, perhaps Mahindra Percussion Festival’s mission is about proving that percussive instruments are not just accompaniment. It is, as every act here demonstrated in their own way, the point.