Biography
Brooklyn Raga Massive operates as a sixty-member pan-cultural nonprofit cooperative that unites Indian classical musicians from the Brooklyn area of New York City with raga practitioners drawn from many other traditions. Serving as an artist-run platform, the collective invites musicians, listeners, and students alike to engage with the vitality of the city’s thriving raga community. Its mission centers on broadening listenership by dispensing with traditional concert conventions while faithfully conveying a profound respect for Indian classical and raga music through performances by accomplished players of varied origins, among them Karsh Kale, Amali Premawardhana, Dan Weiss, and Tali Rubinstein.
Established in November 2011, the organization has fostered connections across music-loving audiences by presenting concerts, lectures, demonstrations, and panel discussions, along with educational outreach initiatives and a weekly Raga Music Jam Session that ran for two and a half years in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Several specialized groups operate under its umbrella, including Women’s Raga Massive, the Ravi Shankar Tribute, the Coltrane Raga Tribute, Raga Cubana, and In C, the last named after Terry Riley’s landmark composition. The collective recorded its own version of Terry Riley’s In C for Northern Spy; the album appeared in October 2017 to widespread praise and was selected by multiple outlets as among the year’s finest releases. In 2019 the ensemble joined composer, improviser, and master percussionist Adam Rudolph’s Go: Organic Orchestra for the double-length project Ragmala: A Garland of Ragas, uniting more than forty musicians under Rudolph’s direction in works that merged jazz, fusion, Indian, Latin, and African elements.
Established in November 2011, the organization has fostered connections across music-loving audiences by presenting concerts, lectures, demonstrations, and panel discussions, along with educational outreach initiatives and a weekly Raga Music Jam Session that ran for two and a half years in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Several specialized groups operate under its umbrella, including Women’s Raga Massive, the Ravi Shankar Tribute, the Coltrane Raga Tribute, Raga Cubana, and In C, the last named after Terry Riley’s landmark composition. The collective recorded its own version of Terry Riley’s In C for Northern Spy; the album appeared in October 2017 to widespread praise and was selected by multiple outlets as among the year’s finest releases. In 2019 the ensemble joined composer, improviser, and master percussionist Adam Rudolph’s Go: Organic Orchestra for the double-length project Ragmala: A Garland of Ragas, uniting more than forty musicians under Rudolph’s direction in works that merged jazz, fusion, Indian, Latin, and African elements.
Albums
