00:00Hello, thanks for joining us today on Arts24, a musical tradition born more than 700 years ago
00:16finds new life on the world's great concert stages.
00:30The orchestral Kuali project began during lockdown and quickly captured a global audience
00:38with millions drawn to its powerful fusion of sacred Sufi, Kuali and Western orchestral music.
00:45They've performed across the UK, selling out London's Royal Albert Hall.
00:49At its heart are singer Abhi Sampa and composer Ruchel Ranjan, whose work bridges devotion and symphony, the ancient and the contemporary.
00:58This week, they bring their music to Paris for the first time, performing at the Sal Pleyel.
01:04I'm delighted to welcome Abhi and Ruchel to Arts24. Thank you for being here.
01:07Thank you for having us.
01:09It's a pleasure to have you now. Abhi, you trained in Karnatic classical music from South India.
01:14You also appeared on The Voice more than 10 years ago, The Voice UK.
01:18Ruchel, you're self-taught. You were working in a law firm when this all began.
01:23I was.
01:23Tell us how this project started.
01:25So I have always, as soon as I heard Kuali music, which was probably about 15 years ago,
01:32I completely fell in love.
01:34And I was just singing it for the sheer love of it.
01:39And then I met Ruchel Ranjan.
01:40And I was singing it in a more traditional sense, which is a singer, backing vocals and a tabla.
01:47But when I met Ruchel, he had this idea that, you know, it would be so beautiful if we brought orchestral elements into it.
01:54So he kind of wrote and composed new scores to sit behind this music.
01:59Well, not even sit behind it, you know, sit there with it.
02:03And it's just reimagined the art form completely.
02:06Yeah.
02:07And what was it about you that grips you so much with this music?
02:10It's really difficult to say because it, and I experienced this with audiences as well,
02:15people who are unfamiliar with the music and the lyrics and the meanings,
02:19which is exactly the place I was in when I first heard it.
02:22And it just has this really transcendental ability to take people on this spiritual journey.
02:29It's like other forms of spiritual music from around the world.
02:32When you go and listen to the carols or when you listen to other gospel music,
02:37you immediately feel that sense of divinity within it.
02:40And I can't, I still haven't quite put my finger on why, but it gripped me.
02:43It's uplifting.
02:44Yeah, it just took me from there.
02:46And it entered the world during lockdown, this project.
02:49When your interpretation of the 700-year-old song, Man Kuntomolo, went viral,
02:54millions of people watched it.
02:57Why did it strike such a chord at that time, that song, do you think?
03:02I think it was.
03:03Go on, go on, go on.
03:03I think it was also the time that it was released.
03:06I mean, we released it in January just before lockdown.
03:08A, it's such a well-known piece, even within communities and outside.
03:14But it was just a new take on it.
03:17The dancer, the orchestral elements, just...
03:20Yeah, and it had no right to it.
03:23It was like 13 minutes long.
03:24So if you speak to any record label executive, they'll say 13 minutes is far too long.
03:28But it just seemed to resonate with people.
03:31And then Coca-Cola picked it up and used it as their soundtrack for their Ramadan campaign for a little while.
03:36And it just kind of went from there.
03:38But we had no idea.
03:39We put it up on our little YouTube channel and it just kind of...
03:42That's amazing.
03:42Well, let's have a listen to it to remind our viewers.
03:45This is Mankuntu Mawla.
03:47The lyrics are in various languages, including Urdu.
04:16And Punjabi.
04:18Yet people who don't understand the words are deeply moved.
04:21Some people have said that they cry.
04:22They're moved to tears all the way through your performances.
04:25You've sold out venues across the UK, including the Royal Albert Hall.
04:30Can you tell us a little bit about what the songs are about?
04:32What are they singing about?
04:33No, no.
04:37So it's 700-year-old poetry, which speaks about Sufism.
04:45And if you look at the lyrics at face value, they almost seem like love songs.
04:51But really, the beautiful thing about Sufi poetry is there's a reflection of one's relationship with a lover and their relationship with God.
05:00And a lot of the poetry speaks to that.
05:02It's very personal and really beautiful and just written in a way that's very free.
05:07Yeah, there's a lot of poetry by a really incredible Punjabi poet called Baba Bullesha, which really, I think it's the most plural form of religious poetry you can find.
05:20It speaks of how some people go to temples, some people go to mosques, some people go to churches.
05:24But we're all finding the same thing within ourselves.
05:27And that's what's captured in the music.
05:29Yeah, something very important message today in today's world.
05:33Abi, you are one of the few women leading a Kowali ensemble.
05:38A tradition has been historically dominated by men.
05:42Have you faced any resistance?
05:44What's it been like?
05:45No, I don't think I have.
05:46I think people have really welcomed us with open arms.
05:49And it hasn't really been anything that I've personally come up against.
05:56So we're just really lucky and fortunate that way.
05:58I think it's, I mean, we find forms of resistance like this, be it from, you know, Abi being a woman or, for example, us introducing orchestral elements.
06:07But it's so dwarfed by how much warmth and positivity we've experienced from different audiences around the world that as long as we ignore that stuff and pay attention to it, we just keep going.
06:18Bruce, you'll talk to us then about how you do approach the music, this music that's centuries old.
06:24And when you approach it, what's your first instinct then?
06:27Is it preservation?
06:29Is it reinterpretation?
06:31Or is it having a conversation with the past?
06:33It's interesting.
06:34It is having a conversation with the past, I think, to a degree.
06:38I think it's always important with these kinds of really, really central spiritual texts that are so important to the culture that you really preserve the essence of what makes them spiritual when you're doing it.
06:54And that's really an intuitive thing.
06:56I can't say that there's a technical list of things that I go through in my mind when I'm writing.
07:00You know whether that essence is still within it when you listen to it.
07:04I want us to listen to another piece that you did now.
07:07I was wondering if you could introduce it for us and tell us a bit more about it.
07:10Gah-ah.
07:12Gah-ah is a piece that was, it's an old Punjabi poem which the melody was composed by one of our double players, Amrit Dufar.
07:21And it's, the meaning is, come home, coming home.
07:25Okay, let's take a listen to that.
07:26Let's take a listen to that.
07:56All my experiences have been while playing Kowali.
08:00Abby, you've said, it's not really me singing, I'm allowing something greater to move through me.
08:06This week, you're going to be performing in the Sal Pleyel.
08:09Tell us what it's like then when you're in this sort of venue, a big venue with all this audience and you're experiencing such a personal, spiritual moment.
08:17To be honest, I'm sure if anyone comes to watch me perform, most of the time I have my eyes closed.
08:24So to me, it doesn't really matter where we are.
08:26We could be, you know, in a very small performance space or the Royal Albert Hall.
08:31To me, it always is the same because I'm, you know, just focused in on something else.
08:36Yeah, I think, I mean, performances can go one of two ways.
08:39If it's all going swimmingly well, you can kind of let go and really experience it.
08:44But I'd say it's moments within the performance where that really, really all comes together and you can feel that connection.
08:53And it's also our team as well.
08:56Our team is just such a close-knit, beautiful group of people that, you know, we're just so fortunate to be with.
09:02Yeah, absolutely.
09:03No, no, no, no, no.
09:04And it's also really handy to, it's really wonderful that we can play with local musicians.
09:08So we're playing with orchestral musicians from France.
09:11So we'll rehearse with them today and tomorrow and then we'll perform with them, which is the wonderful thing about the project.
09:17Wherever we go, we play with the orchestra that's based there.
09:20And you've talked about the Royal Albert Hall where you played.
09:24Now you're playing at this very classical, prestigious venue, the South Playout.
09:28What does that mean to bring your music there?
09:31I mean, I love the idea of us expanding our definition of what we consider to be classical music,
09:38expanding our definition of the canon in that sense, because this is Indian classical music or South Asian classical music.
09:45And that's widely considered to be a really predominant classical form.
09:49And I think for a lot of us, including Abby, when we hear it, that's what classical music means to us.
09:55So I love the idea of considering it as classical music as well in that sense.
09:59Yeah, it's important.
10:00Well, we always end our shows with our guests' cultural pick of the moment.
10:03What have you chosen for us?
10:06So we've picked Songs of the Bulbul, which is a dance piece by the extraordinary dancer Akash Odedra.
10:12And it's on tour at the moment around the world.
10:14So in the clip that you saw of Gara, he was the dancer within it.
10:18And it's a piece that he has put together that it's again, it's a Sufi piece.
10:23And it's a dance theater piece, which is really, really beautiful.
10:27It combines orchestral music with it.
10:29And it tells the story of a bird.
10:31These Sufi birds used to be captured and caged and made to sing these beautiful songbirds.
10:36And their plight would get worse and worse and worse.
10:38And as their plight got worse, their song got more and more beautiful.
10:40And that's what the dance piece is about.
10:44And I won't say any more other than I really, really would recommend going to see it.
10:47It's very special.
10:48You composed the music for it.
10:49I wrote the music for it, but that's not why I'm plugging it.
10:52No, the images are beautiful.
10:56We're going to leave you then with Songs of the Bulbul, which is on tour until March,
11:00including at the Sydney Opera House at the end of January.
11:03Abby and Ruchel, thank you so much for coming and joining us on France 24.
11:07It's been a real pleasure.
11:08And the orchestral Kowali project will perform at the South Playa this Wednesday, the 28th of January.
11:14Thanks for watching.
11:15See you next time.
11:16See you next time.
11:24Bye.
11:24Bye.
11:26Bye.
11:28Bye.
11:31Bye.
11:39Bye.
11:44Bye.
11:44Bye.
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