Purbayan Chatterjee on Jamming With Steven Wilson and Other International Collaborations

Despite the request from British artist Steven Wilson at his Mumbai show on Nov. 3, 2025 that fans should refrain from recording the concert, it was a phones-out moment when sitarist-composer Purbayan Chatterjee was called on stage to jam on “Voyage 34,” a seminal psychedelic jam from Porcupine Tree.

The lights even turned all blue, red, and white, in a possible nod to the 2004 re-issue artwork. On stage, the energy was at an all-time high for what the sitarist calls a trip in progress. “It was a transformative experience for me as a musician, just being on stage. The Mumbai audience made it magic for me,” Chatterjee says over a phone call.

It was in June this year that a video of sitarist-composer Purbayan Chatterjee jamming with prog band Dream Theater’s keyboardist and composer-producer Jordan Rudess did the rounds on social media. The sitarist surmises that Wilson and his team perhaps saw that video and reached out to him about a possible guest appearance during his The Overview Tour India 2025. “They were trying to take me [on the entire tour] but the dates didn’t match, as I was also supposed to go to Azerbaijan,” he says.

Familiar with Wilson’s solo work as well as Porcupine Tree’s discography, Chatterjee had some reservations considering they weren’t going to have a chance to rehearse the songs. While on tour in the U.S., he received “Voyage 34” and was asked to play sitar over it and send it back to Wilson. “I recorded something from Houston and sent it to him. And he said, ‘Wow, this is going amazing.’ I played on a lot of the song. and I thought that he will say, ‘Oh no, no, you had these 16 bars here.’ But to my surprise, he said we’ll keep all of it and I’d play throughout the song,” Chatterjee recalls. They finally met on stage during soundcheck, and the sitarist says it was “magic from the get-go.”

Following the on-stage collaboration, there might be more in the works between the artists. “He [Wilson] reached out to my manager yesterday, and he said he would like to keep in touch. I’m actually going to be in the U.K. in February, so let me see if I can hang out with him and figure some stuff.”

In addition to Wilson, Chatterjee is also working with Rudess on material. “We are constantly in touch, and we are working on songs together. We also share a passion for technology and apps,” he says.

We remind Chatterjee that Dream Theater are back in India in January 2026 with shows in Bengaluru and Kolkata. Asked if we might see another on-stage collaboration, Chatterjee laughs and says, “I don’t know, they haven’t asked yet.”

In December 2023, the sitarist made a similar star appearance, called on by fusion band Snarky Puppy to add a solo to their song “Lingus” in Mumbai. While he’s collaborated with bandleader Michael League on his album Unbounded (Abaad) in 2021, this jam led to an upcoming album with guitarist Mark Lettieri. “We’re coming out with an album called Feathered Creatures. I think the first single will drop in April, as things are planned now. So we’re taking that on the road and touring, and that’s in the electronic production space,” Chatterjee says.

There are also plans to set up a second home in New York and work with more musicians from around the world, with Chatterjee hoping to express himself as a “contemporary individual,” drawing from Indian classical music as well as other forms. He adds, “Music cannot become an anachronistic thing, fossilized with no relevance. We have to keep it relevant. We have to keep it very interactive. We have to keep it very conversational. It’s very important to do that.”