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A New Indo-U.K. Collaborative Project Will Mentor Young Artists and Host Performances in Bengaluru and Manchester

RhythmXchange is the result of a partnership between Manchester Museum and the Indian Music Experience

Oct 17, 2022

Mentors and young artists involved in the RhythmXchange program (clockwise from top left): Deepikaa Sreenivasan, Vishnu R, Balraj Samrai, Ashwin Mandoth, Joash Gill, Vinthya, Aditi B. Prahalad and Aziz Ibrahim.

South Asian and western traditions of percussion and rhythm are set to be explored in a new art project that brings together young artists and seasoned mentors from India and the U.K.

Spread across a six-month period, RhythmXchange – which is a partnership between Manchester Museum and the Indian Music Experience Museum – will involve four emerging artists supported by four mentors (two mentors guiding each artist) to create a collaborative piece and perform it at festival events in Manchester and Bengaluru. The India leg is scheduled to be held between November 25th and 27th at the Indian Music Experience Museum in Bengaluru, while the U.K. edition will take place between March 17th and 19th, 2023, at the Manchester Museum.

The mentors include Pakistani-origin U.K. guitarist Aziz Ibrahim (best known for his work with Simply Red, The Stone Roses and Steven Wilson), Manchester-based musician and educator Balraj Singh Samrai, composer Vishnu R (who invented the nine-string instrument Navtar) and percussionist-composer Deepikaa Sreenivasan.

The two India-based artists selected for RhythmXchange include keyboardist-composer Ashwin Mandoth (part of rock band Manga) and Carnatic vocalist Aditi B. Prahalad. Joining them are Sri Lankan-origin, Netherlands-bred and Manchester-based violinist-composer Vinthya Perinpanathan and Punjabi-Brit vocalist-songwriter Joash Gill. Together with their mentors, the artists will gather to create “a collaborative cross-cultural artistic outcome.”

Mandoth tells Rolling Stone India about joining RhythmXchange, “I feel I take a part of every person I meet, every place I visit and bring it into my music. I am super excited to work with such brilliant musicians from our India and the U.K. I love exploring new genres and can’t wait to travel to Manchester. This is my first international tour! I can’t wait to see the flavor of music we all will make together.”

Sreenivasan says there’s a diversity among the artists selected for the program, which will likely result in “refreshingly new” music among them. “It is as much a journey of self-discovery for us mentors as it is for them, since we will all need to place our art and learnings in contexts very different from the norm,” she says in a statement. U.K.’s Samrai, a longtime music educator, says he’s keen to draw from South Asian music tradition as well as contemporary techniques. “I hope it can build further links and networks between Manchester and Bangalore informing inclusive and dynamic exchanges for years to come,” he adds.

RhythmXchange is funded by the British Council’s India/UK Together, a Season of Culture initiative, which is described as a year-long celebration of Indian and British relations coinciding with the former’s 75 years of independence. There’s also funding from the Our Shared Cultural Heritage program, which focuses on museums can come together.

Get more details here.

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