Pioneer Works is excited to present the 14th annual Ragas Live Festival featuring 24 hours of transcendent music in the Pioneer Works Main Hall. The entire program will be broadcast live on video at Pioneer Works’ Youtube & WKCR 89.9 FM in NYC (audio only).

For the 2025 festival, more than 50 artists and legendary maestros of the South Asian classical tradition will perform alongside groundbreaking contemporary artists in a musical journey through day and night. The artist lineup features some of the greatest living sitar players Shahid Parvez and Purbayan Chatterjee, ecstatic Qawwali musicians, a Zakir Hussain Tribute led by his Grammy-winning collaborators Sikiru Adepoju and V. Selvaganesh, the jaw-dropping violin virtuosity of Charumathi Raghuraman, and the exploratory electronics of eucademix (Yuka Honda). More surprise headlining acts will be announced in October 2025.

About Ragas Live Festival

Ragas Live Festival was born as an in-studio radio broadcast at Columbia University’s WKCR in 2012 and immediately gained a global listening audience. Its annual presentation of 50–70 musicians — and its expansive curation of music inspired by the Indian classical tradition — became central to a movement that The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, and others have called “The Raga Renaissance.”

The event left the studio in 2016, becoming a live, in-person broadcast at Pioneer Works, where it has since cultivated a passionate following.

The event is inspired by raga, the classical music tradition from South Asia, where specific modes harmonize with the moods and energy of particular times of day, such as sunrise, sunset, or the darkest hours of the night. Master musicians from the raga tradition are presented alongside legends in ambient music, minimalism, jazz and global traditions.

Schedule

October 18

7:00 PM ARAJ: Ishaan Ghosh, S. Akash, Mehtab Ali, Pratik Singh & Vanraj Shastri ( tabla, bansuri, sitar, vocals, sarangi)

8:25 PM Charumathi Raghuraman, Anantha R. Krishnan & Giridhar Udupa (violin, mridangam, ghatam)

9:50 PM eucademix (Yuka Honda) (electronics)

10:30 PM Surprise Artist to be announced 10/5 (Qawwali)

October 19

12:00 AM Light over Shadow (Zakir Hussein Tribute): Sikiru Adepoju, Selvaganesh, Ishaan Ghosh, and special guests (global percussion)

1:30 AM Asif Khan, Karamat Khan, & Vanraj Shastri (vocal, tabla, bulbul tarang, sarangi) (Ghazal set)

2:30 AM Arun Ramamurthy Trio – (Arun Ramamurthy, violin; Sameer Gupta, drums; Damon Banks, bass)

3:45 AM Surprise Artist to be announced 10/5

5:15 AM Vishnu Ramprasad, navtar

6:30 AM Radhika Samson & Tejas Tope, (surbahar, pakawaj)

7:45-8:45 Whispering Worlds w/ Aaron Shragge (John Hassell Tribute) (Aaron Shragge -trumpet/shakuhachi/fx/composition; Luke Schwartz, guitar; Damon Banks, bass; Deric Dickens, drums)

9:00AM Vinay Desai & Vivek Pandya (santoor, tabla)

10:15 AM Purbayan Chatterjee & Amit Kavthekar (sitar. tabla)

11:45 AM Surprise Artist to be announced 10/5

12:45 PM Mandolin U. Rajesh & Swaminathan Selvaganesh (mandolin, kanjira)

2:15 PM Priya Purushothaman. Pratyush Goberdha & Tejas Tope (vocal, sarangi, tabla)

3:15 PM Anand Avirmed – (Mongolian throat singing & horsehead fiddle)

4:00 PM Shahid Parvez & Nitin Mitta (sitar, tabla)

5:35 PM Surprise Artist to be announced 9/27 (E. violin, percussion)

Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia (Palo Alto), NYC Radio Live, People of Rhythm Productions, and Brooklyn Raga Massive. Ragas Live Festival is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Beverage sponsorship provided by Yerba Madre.

This program takes place within artist Raúl de Nieves’s site-specific installation, In Light of Innocence. Learn more about the exhibition here.