Mark Your Calendars For Jodhpur RIFF 2024 – India’s Finest Folk Music Festival Is Back!

Under the brightest full moon of this year, Jodhpur RIFF will bring together more than 280 spectacular roots music performers from across the world, India and the state of Rajasthan, in Jodhpur’s awe-inspiring Mehrangarh Fort, to inspire, entertain and dazzle audiences from the 16th to the 20th of October.

Mehrangarh, a majestic 15th century fort built out of burnished red sandstone, standing on a perpendicular cliff overlooking the skyline of the blue city of Jodhpur, has been called “the work of giants” by Rudyard Kipling. Aldous Huxley wrote that, from its ramparts, “One hears as the gods must hear from Olympus”. It is in such a venue that audiences will witness the splendour of roots music masters, stars and legends.

The festival’s lineup in its 17th year includes French electronica artist Éric Mouquet, who co-founded the Grammy-winning music project Deep Forest, the masterly Manganiyar of Marwar, Kutiyattam maestro Kapila Venu from Kerala, GABBA from Norway, who won the Spellemannprisen, singer, composer and lyricist Sona Mohapatra, emerging Rajasthani roots music group SAZ, Estonian folk stars Puuluup, Anuja Zokarkar (rendering a tribute to Pandit Chintaman Raghunath Vyas, a giant of the Hindustani classical genre), Meherdeen Khan Langa, legendary exponent of both the Sindhi sarangi and the algoza, Hindustani vocalist Barnali Chattopadhyay, Sumitra Das Goswami, called ‘the Cuckoo of Rajasthan’, the Warsi Brothers from Hyderabad, and Kaluram Bamaniya and his Kabir gayan, to name some.

HH Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur, Chief Patron of Jodhpur RIFF says, “Rajasthani folk artists are equal to the best roots musicians in the world. Not just in terms of their musical heritage but also how some of them are reinterpreting and contemporising their legacy for the current generation. Jodhpur RIFF is proof of this. The festival exists to provide an enabling environment and superb platform for folk artists. But it also serves to introduce remarkable international performers to our audiences and gives these artists a fantastic opportunity to interact and collaborate with the infinite living treasure that is Rajasthani folk.”

Festival Director Divya Bhatia says, “Jodhpur RIFF has been at the forefront of the Indian roots music scene for 17 years now. Our commitment to roots music also means that we think beyond silos such as music. dance, theatre or classical, jazz, folk and ‘Sufi’ and truly explore the wonder that is our collective, living, musical heritage. This year’s Jodhpur RIFF aims to do just that.”

Jodhpur RIFF is known primarily for the phenomenal space it creates every year around Sharad Purnima, when legends of world and roots music discover an extraordinary setting in which to perform with audiences at Mehrangarh experiencing magic they will not find anywhere else. But its legacy extends beyond this four day spell.

Jodhpur RIFF has, for over a decade and a half, dedicated itself to inspiring, building, reviving, contemporising and defining the roots music and performance scene in Rajasthan, India and the world. It has supported and provided a platform for Rajasthan’s folk performers and communities. It has created opportunities for younger Rajasthani musicians and performers to nurture their craft. It has instituted and sustained over many years, collaborations between global, Indian and Rajasthani roots performers, some of which have travelled across the planet to great accolades.

This year’s festival, for instance, weaves together dance, music and theatre, breaking down silos between how these performing arts are viewed through collaborations such as that between SAZ — a stunning group of Rajasthani folk musicians born out of this festival, who have rearranged traditional lyrics to dynamic compositions and written original songs in the genre which speak to today’s generation — and kathak exponent Tarini Tripathi. Other highlights which blend performance forms include Kutiyattam, Dilip Bhatt’s Jaipur Tamasha, the robust revival of a fading theatre form, Pavakathakali (performed by the Natanakairali Pavakathakali Ensemble and lead by Guru G Venu) and Lavani by Aditi Bhawat. Similarly, walls between genres will be scaled this year by performers like Mauritian multi-instrumentalist Emlyn Marimutu, who blends elements from African, Malagasy and Indian music, Louis Mhlanga, who mixes American and Zimbabwean influences and Gray by Silver from South Korea, a group which finds equal inspiration in contemporary Western classical, indigenous folk song, modern jazz, and new age instrumental. Musical ideas of ‘folk’ and ‘classical’ might even disappear on stage, in the presence of the recipient of the Aga Khan Music Award (AKMA 2020-22) Asin Khan Langa on the Sindhi sarangi, and recipient of an AKMA Special Mention artist Dilshad Khan (on the classical sarangi), who will come together for a 40 minute collaboration produced by festival director Divya Bhatia.

Last year’s festival had a special focus on Rajasthani percussion instruments— the dholak, bhapang and khartal. Jodhpur RIFF 2024 spreads its arms wider, to feature Congolese drummer Elli Miller-Maboungu, ghatam masters Sukanya Ramgopal and Giridhar Udupa, the Natiq Shirinov Rhythm Group, known to be Azerbaijan’s most popular wedding percussionists, along with Rajasthani dholak maestros Feroze Khan Manganiyar and Sadik Khan Langa and leading khartal exponents Devu Khan Manganiyar and  Zakir Khan Langa. Miller-Maboungu and Udupa will also lead the RIFF Rustle, the unique, grand finale to Jodhpur RIFF’s night time revelries, slated to take place on the 19th of October this year, when most performers at the festival participate in an impromptu collaboration in pairs or quartets or all together. The music on this night, they say, is heard far above and beyond the ramparts of Mehrangarh fort.

Some Highlights from Jodhpur RIFF 2024

ERIC MOUQUET

Eric Mouquet, composer, musician and legend of electronic music will lead a live set at Club Mehran which will also feature artists from the festival. Mouquet is one of the two founders of Deep Forest, the first French electro group to clinch a prestigious Grammy Award for Best World Music Album, featuring roots musicians from all backgrounds.

SUKANYA RAMGOPAL, GIRIDHAR UDUPA, SHREEHARSHA: GURU-SHISHYA GHATAM GHARANA

Known as the first woman ghatam player in Carnatic music, Sukanya Ramgopal came up with the ideas of ‘Ghata Tharang’, where six to seven ghatams of different shrutis are played together, as well as ‘Sthree Thaal Tharang’, an all woman ghatam ensemble. She will be accompanied by her student Giridhar Udupa, who is also a master of Carnatic percussion as well as his student Shreeharsha.

LIVING LEGEND: MEHERDEEN KHAN LANGA

65 year old Meherdeen Khan Langa is not only a master of the Sindhi sarangi which is his community’s talisman (the Sarangiya Langa community), but also the Surnaiya Langa community’s wind instrument: the algoza. This living legend, who has performed across the world and is now in semi-retirement, will play both instruments at Jodhpur RIFF 2024, accompanied by Idu and Asin Khan Langa.

SONA MOHAPATRA: UNPLUGGED

Singer, lyricist and composer Sona Mohapatra hardly needs an introduction. Known for numbers like Ambarsariya, Jiya Lage Na, Mujhein Kya Bechega Rupaiya and the recent Beda Paar, Mohapatra is one of India’s leading independent artists, known as much for her music as for her social commentary. Trained primarily in Hindustani classical, she keeps folk music alive in her practice with what she calls ‘Desi Soul’ music. On the Jodhpur RIFF stage after 14 years, Mohapatra has graciously acquiesced to present a specially curated set for the festival.

GABBA: TALES FROM A YOIKER

The Yoik, one of Europe’s oldest song traditions, with minimal or no lyrics, is an intrinsic part of Sámi culture. The Sámi are indigenous to the far northern parts of Scandinavia and Russia. Gabba, winners of the Spellemannprisen  (equivalent to a Norwegian Grammy), weave this singing style with Norwegian folk, Americana, and world music, infusing it with contemporaneity, resurrecting it for another age.

BARNALI CHATTOPADHYAY: AMIR KHUSRAU

Recently in the news for bringing to life key songs from Heeramandi, Barnali Chattopadhyay, known for her rendition of the Banarasi Maand as well as classical thumris, presents a selection from the works of Amir Khusrau as her ode to the Sufi legend and spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, whose music and poetry looms large over Hindustani and Carnatic classical Indian traditions.

‘WHY I DO WHAT I DO’

An interactive session where we hear the voices of five women from four different performing art traditions of Rajasthan: Maewa Sapera,  Mamta Sapera, Prem Dangi, Hanifa Manganiyar and Kamla Bhat

SHAIVA KOOTHU: KUDDIYATTAM BY KAPILA VENU

Kutiyattam (meaning ‘acting together’), acknowledged by UNESCO as ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and  Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, is one of the oldest living theatre traditions of the world. Kapila Venu experiments beyond the traditional possibilities of the art form, which is an intricate mix of  ancient Sanskrit theatre and traditional koothu, an ancient artform from the Sangam era.

MANGANIYAR OF MARWAR: VOCAL MAGIC

A special, annual performance at the festival by senior legends of the Manganiyar community dedicated to the late Padma Shri Sakhar Khan Manganiyar of Hamira: doyen, mentor and teacher par excellence. Songs rarely heard nowadays will be brought back to life with gusto by vocalists Barkat Khan (Chattangarh), Barkat Khan (Myajlar), Hakim Khan (Kisola) and Multan Khan (Dedariya), accompanied by Sakhar ji’s sons Ghevar and Darre Khan on the kamaicha, and Feroze Khan, the living master of the Rajasthani dholak. Their friend and cousin, Devu Khan, will also accompany them on the khartal.

AN AFRICAN DAWN WITH LOUIS MHLANGA

Award winning roots and jazz guitarist and producer Louis Mhlanga is celebrated as one of Southern Africa’s finest. Influenced by the traditional finger-picking styles of African instruments such as the kora, he blends American and Zimbabwean elements in his music.