Guest curator Keval Shah launches (Re)Sounding India with an afternoon of live music and conversation featuring composer, producer and sarod virtuoso Soumik Datta, joined by special guests, to be announced. Together they explore what it means to inherit cultural traditions while forging a creative path of your own. Through performance, storytelling and discussion, the artists explore how the British South Asian diaspora navigates culture, identity and creativity.

Blending performance with personal reflection, the event brings together artists whose work draws on South Asian cultural heritage while speaking to contemporary life in Britain.

Through music, storytelling and discussion, the artists share their own experiences of navigating multiple cultural influences: how traditions are passed between generations, how memories of home are preserved and reimagined, and how questions of identity, belonging and heritage find expression through art. Audiences will hear how established musical traditions continue to inspire new creative voices, and how artists balance respect for the past with a desire to create something distinctly their own.

Warm, thought-provoking and deeply personal, this opening event offers an introduction to the themes at the heart of (Re)Sounding India.

This event will last approximately 75 minutes, with no interval.

Keval Shah

Multi-award-winning pianist and curator Keval Shah is celebrated for the artistic and intellectual originality of his creative practice, at the heart of which lies a fascination for soundscapes born of multicultural identity and thought. Raised in a Gujarati family near London, he trained at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music before becoming, at 25, the youngest professor in the history of Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy. His career has since flourished internationally, marked by collaborations with world-renowned singers, composers, and arts institutions.

Soumik Datta

Winner of the Aga Khan Award (2022), Eastern Eye ACTA (2025) and Indian Global Forum Award for Arts (2025), Soumik Datta is a visionary musician with the ability to cross boundaries, cultures and art forms. A sarod virtuoso, composer, TV presenter and Artistic Director of the Soumik Datta Arts charity, his work embraces traditional and contemporary art forms to address the urgent issues of our times.