Music has rules, but can one draw a line around artistic expression? For Delhi-born pianist and composer Utsav Lal, the answer lies in bending them. Popularly dubbed the ‘raga pianist’, Lal blends Hindustani classical compositions on the Western piano, an instrument rarely associated with the Indian raga.
Having trained in Western classical music, jazz and Indian classical music, Lal is taking that vocabulary in another direction with Ragas to Reels, an Indo-Irish collaboration that culminated in Delhi on Sunday at The Piano Man after five shows in India.
The project brings together Hindustani classical music and Irish traditional music, with Lal joined by Irish fiddle player Cleek Schrey, flautist-saxophonist Sam Comerford and tabla player Zuheb Ahmed Khan, with performances shifting between tightly arranged passages and improvisation. The tour was presented in India with the support of the Embassy of Ireland, New Delhi, the Consulate General of Ireland, Mumbai, and Culture Ireland, as a flagship cultural programme marking Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The project has been years in the making. “For 15 years, I have kept a running note on my phone called ‘Ragas to Reels seed ideas’, filled with tunes, orchestration concepts, and scores that I might only use years later,” he says. “The deepest part of the project for me involves slow-cooking a way of creating and improvising together that supersedes our tradition. Some of it is long-scale raga forms blending with reels, jigs and airs and thrilling, culturally fluid musical climaxes.”
For Lal, the connection between the two traditions is rooted in familiarity as much as experimentation. He moved to Ireland at 13 and encountered traditional Irish music at school, even as he continued performing Indian classical music. He eventually began inviting Irish musicians to join him for short Indo-Irish sets.
One such experience for him was Irish composer Peadar O’Riada sing an air over two tanpuras for the first time. “It immediately clicked that the feeling of both these traditions can be incredibly similar even if the underlying forms are different,” he recalls. “Over the last 20 years, I’ve been studying, performing and had the pleasure of working and spending time with masters of Irish music. It feels like an integral part of my musical identity.”
Home, in Delhi
Now based in Brooklyn, coming home to Delhi brought Lal back to where much of his musical journey began. “Delhi is always home!” he says. “Something about the smells, the air, the noise just hits differently.”
He recalls taking his first piano lessons at the Delhi School of Music and developing a fascination with Dhrupad after attending a Zia Fariduddin Dagar performance at the India Habitat Centre. He continues to study with his guru, Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar of the Dagar family, a key influence on his understanding of raga.
Lal began playing piano at around eight and gave his debut concert at nine. Hindi film compositions and Western classical music came first, followed by jazz improvisation and Hindustani classical music. His teacher John Raphael later encouraged him to study jazz after hearing his raga improvisations.
Yet, nearly two decades into his musical journey and after more than 200 solo raga concerts around the world, Indian classical music remains his “true calling”. His relationship with the piano has also shifted.
“I’m a lot less concerned about convincing anyone about the piano as a raga instrument and just happy to get closer and closer to the feeling of raga music for myself,” he says. “You must work hard to master the technical elements, but the music only truly works when you remove your ego, the need to impress, and the desire to entertain. Surrendering to a journey of self-exploration is where the true magic of raga lies for me.”
And the experiments continue. Lal hopes to record more solo piano albums and curate an anthology of experimental raga music — continuing to explore, rather than define, where the music can go.