Mukta: The Voices of Women Today

Launched in 2022 by the Mumbai-based National Centre for the Performing Arts to celebrate 75 years of India’s Independence, Mukta: The Voices of Women Today is a three-day Indian classical music festival comprising performances conceptualised, composed and led by female artists.

The inaugural edition of the festival included a performance by Hindustani classical music vocalist Shubha Mudgal, titled “Women, Sexuality, and Song”, a concert of works by “the great masters of Indian poetry”. The verses Mudgal sang included “stories of women, some full of sensuality and unabashed eroticism, others of the terrible, tragic challenges and stigmas” that they continue to face.

Saraswati veena player Jayanthi Kumaresh staged ‘Shiva-Shakti’, a Karnatik classical music recital, with violin player Charulatha Ramanujam, mridangam player Patri Satishkumar and ghatam player Giridhar Udupa. It showed how “the supreme forces of the feminine and the masculine – the lasya and the tandava – intertwine aesthetically in the form of music”.

Hindustani classical exponent Kaushiki Chakraborty’s ’Tirianga’ featured the singer along with an ensemble of north and south Indian classical and folk music vocalists and instrumentalists as well as students of the Symphony Orchestra of India Music Academy. The presentation comprised pieces that musically depict the three colours of the Indian national flag–saffron, green and white. Overall, the festival Mukta: The Voices of Women Today was a grand success.

See the entire list of music festivals here.