Dilli Durbar is a 2 day music festival, the biggest in India which is an initiative aimed solely towards renaissance of Indian Classical Music. It is an annual festival and extremely progressive in its approach.
This is a festival designed to create a path for the youth to connect with India’s great age old traditional Classical Music and culture. There are live performances from a line up of the Doyens of classical music and top vocalists from the Indian film Industry spanning different genres of music including Indian Classical, Carnatic Classical, Sufi, Qawwali, Ghazal, Khayal, Dastangoi, popular music and even Rock.
The festival also creates a platform for close interaction with celebrities, interactive sessions, lecture demonstrations, seminars and panel discussions by Industry professionals which focus on the insights of the industry and practical ways and means to further the skill required to be in this Industry.
In the March of 2019, Dilli Durbar was held in Delhi in the sprawling IGNCA over 2 days .The Iconic musicians, living legends and world renowned artists in this festival included people like Ustad Rashid Khan, Kailash Kher, Javed Ali, Piyush Mishra, Ustad Iqbal Ahmed Khan, Padmashree Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, Dr. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Padmashree Shovana Narayan, Anuradha Pal and Pandit Birju Maharaj.
In my capacity as a voice culture expert, I was invited to conduct a workshop and lecture demonstration on sculpting the classical voice. It is a recent phenomenon for the Indian classical Music Industry to recognize the significance of voice training and voice culture for vocalists. It was an honor to be a part of this nascent Industry and have the opportunity to bring my expertise to professional and aspiring vocalists at a forum where over 30,000 music lovers got together under the umbrella of this festival to learn, know and adapt to the old and new Indian culture of music .
For me, It was an amazing and unforgettable experience to be able to spread the joy of traditional singing through the art of Voice Culture. The attendees were exceptionally talented vocalists, radio artists, instrumentalists, teachers, students, music critics, journalists and Film music composers and music enthusiasts. The subject was clearly new territory to everyone and the interest and eagerness to learn and try new things at the workshop itself was exciting to see. It was wonderful to have some myths dispelled, practically watch the actionable absorption of knowledge, offer immediate tips and techniques that visibly helped participants and just the openness, readiness to change and progressive points of view that I witnessed.
Discussions with Music directors from the Indian film Industry like Vishal Khurana, classical doyens like Ustad Iqbal Ahmed Khan, Ustad Rashid Khan and celebrated vocalists like Kailash Kher, Javed Ali and Piyush Mishra were priceless. Enriching In-depth conversations on the importance and need for voice culture training for vocalists of all genres , sharing VOCAL TECHNIQUES and the powerful process behind VOCALIZING and being privy to the technical treasures from the masters themselves was as good as it can get!
I was blessed to be a part of this musical tradition and to be able to bring what I know to the Indian youth. The workshop was so well received that the festival has made me a permanent part of this annual tradition.