‘Soul India’ to be Brought to Life by Padma Shri Hariharan

Pune, 13th January 2025 : ‘Soul India’ a prestigious music festival conceptualized by Hariharan, two times National Award and Padma Shri Awardee renowned vocalist is all set to be held in Pune from 27th February to 2nd March 2025. The festival will bring together various musical traditions on a single platform.

Organized by Hariharan’s Native Collective Foundation, the festival’s management will be handled by SwarZankar. This official announcement was made at a press conference in Pune today. Padma Shri Hariharan, founder of Violin Academy Pandit Atulkumar Upadhye, and SwarZankar directors Rajas and Tejas Upadhye were present on the occasion.

Speaking about the festival, Padma Shri Hariharan said, “The core idea of this festival is to provide audiences with the joy of experiencing musical diversity on a single platform. The festival will feature Indian classical music, ghazals, thumri, Maharashtra’s traditional music, and electronic dance music, among other genres I felt like starting this concert from Pune because this city has maure audiences and people are receptive to the new ideas.”

The first day of the festival (February 27) will be dedicated to Indian classical music, featuring a sitar performance by the legendary sitarist Niladri Kumar and a vocal recital by Ghulam Niyaz Khan.

The second day (February 28) will showcase the grand special event ‘Sounds of Maharashtra,’ highlighting various musical traditions of Maharashtra. Conceptualized by National Award-winning singer Rahul Deshpande, this program will include bhajans, kirtans, natya sangeet, bharud, and lavani. Along with the live performances, the event will feature specially produced audiovisual content. Rahul Deshpande and acclaimed singer Priyanka Barve will also perform on this day.

On the third day (March 1), ‘Kings in Concert,’ a Bollywood film music program, will delight cinema music lovers. Padma Shri Hariharan and renowned singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan will perform solo and later join forces with a grand orchestra for a memorable musical feast.

The fourth and final day (March 2) will be devoted to ghazals and thumri. Promising young artists Samrat Pandit and Madhubanti Bagchi will perform thumri, while Prithvi Gandharv and Pratibha Singh Baghel will render soulful ghazals. The festival will conclude with a performance by Padma Shri Suresh Wadkar, a veteran and a Sangeet Natak Akademi Award-winning singer.

The programs to be held on the second and the third day of the event will be held at the Suryakant Kakade Farms in Kothrud. The venue for the programs to be held on the first and the last day of the event shall be announced soon. Timing of the event on all 4 days would be 5 pm to 10 pm.

Additionally, during the festival, there are plans to organize events in Pune focused on electronic dance music, conceptualized by Akshay Hariharan, son of Padma Shri Hariharan.

“I have got the invitation to perform at the Kumbh Mela and I am going there with my 90 years old mother. I am thinking of creating some new compositions for this special event”, said Hariharan during the Press Conference.

While answering the question about the dress code in some temples Hariharan said, “We must respect the traditions that have existed for several centuries. We should not put a question mark on them. We have a tradition of special dressing and special foods for special occasions, so we should not create unnecessary debate about it.”

“We still remember old songs because of the power of words that it had. The new age artists are focusing more on performance presentations, which is fine but they should not sideline the core values of the art and the talent should not take the backseat. The world has become more dramatic now”, he added.

He described Ustaad Zakir Hussain as a Godly personality who treated everyone with dignity. “His performances used to be divine and when we used to see it then we used to feel that reaching this level is just not possible. I got connected to Marathi songs due to Natya Sangeet which I regularly came in contact with in my childhood days in Mumbai. I admire Lala Didi’s songs and compositions of Hridaynath Mangeshkar and Shrinivas Khale.”