Guest curator Keval Shah launches new series (Re)Sounding India with a live conversation around the table, where food, music and stories meet.

Keval Shah brings together musician Soumik Datta, singer and multi-instrumentalist Abi Sampa and chef and writer Ravinder Bhogal for a very different kind of conversation. As Ravinder prepares a meal for her fellow guests, they gather around the table to share food, stories and ideas about heritage, identity and the cultures we carry with us. With live performances from Keval and Soumik woven through the afternoon, this is part live podcast, part shared meal and part musical encounter.

As Ravinder cooks a meal for her fellow guests, Keval leads a wide-ranging conversation about the cultures we inherit and what happens when we make them our own. Across food, music and personal stories, they explore family and memory, belonging and creative freedom, and the ways traditions change as they travel between generations and across borders.

This event is a conversation shared through different creative lives. Abi Sampa’s work brings together Indian classical traditions with contemporary Sufi and qawwali performance, while Ravinder’s cooking is rooted in her Kenyan-Indian heritage and the diverse immigrant cultures of Britain. Soumik Datta brings another perspective through a musical practice that crosses cultures and art forms.

Relaxed, generous and unscripted, the afternoon offers a unique opening to (Re)Sounding India: a gathering around the table to explore how culture is remembered, shared and continually remade.

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.

Abi Sampa

Abi Sampa is a multi-instrumentalist, qawwal and veena virtuoso whose genre-blending approach has made her a defining voice in contemporary Sufi and fusion music. Born in North-West London to Sri Lankan Tamil parents, her multicultural upbringing shaped a musical identity rooted in both Western and Indian classical traditions, forming the foundation of her distinctive vocal and instrumental style.

Ravinder Bhogal

Born in Kenya to Indian parents, Ravinder Bhogal draws on her rich, multicultural heritage and the UK’s vibrant immigrant culture to create food that defies categorisation. She is a chef, restaurateur, and writer, the author of three books: Cook in Boots; Jikoni: Proudly
Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen; and Comfort and Joy.