Brooklyn Raga Massive has been making waves for their role instigating what the New York Times, New Yorker, and Wall Street Journal have called a “Raga Renaissance.” The Go: Organic Orchestra with Adam Rudolph has been pushing the boundaries of large ensemble creative music for over 20 years, collaborating with musicians such as Yusef Lateef, Bennie Maupin, Don Cherry, Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, and L. Shankar. This ambitious project brings together “two of the most interesting bands in the USA” (London Jazz Times) Brooklyn Raga Massive and Go: Organic Orchestra into a synergistic exploration of raga, India’s classical music and contemporary creative music.
The 27-piece orchestra speaks in a hybrid tongue that reflects the immigrant experience, with diverse cultures congregating and enriching one another in profound and surprising ways. While the music of Ragmala draws inspiration from the wealth of these traditions, the resulting sound is something entirely new. Using a groundbreaking compositional and spontaneous conducting approach invented by Rudolph, each member’s distinctive identity shines through in a singular vivid tapestry of transcendent and harmonious sound or what critic Ian Ward of UK Vibes calls “a truly global, celestial, cosmic "world" music.”
Ragmala / Go: Organic Orchestra is a 21st century vision of a "future orchestra". Its multicultural, multiracial, and multigenerational dynamic expresses a vision of our shared humanity. Musicians and instruments from India, Brazil, Japan, USA, Canada, Cuba, Guinea, Argentina, Morocco and Bangladesh join together to create a realization of creative community in a world without boundaries - of art as the vessel for understanding, empathy and sharing.
“While Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Art Center has been presenting jazz, improvised and/or experimental music for half a century, it’s still entirely possible this was the most sweepingly wide, boundary-defying cross-cultural performance the venue has ever seen."
Adam Rudolph, conductor
Brooklyn Raga Massive Performing Artists
Samarth Nagarkar, vocals
Arun Ramamurthy, violin
Neel Murgai, rhythm sitar, overtone singing
Jay Gandhi, bansuri
Mir Naqibul Islam, tabla
Go: Organic Orchestra Performing Artists
Kaoru Watanabe, c flute, fue, noh kan
Michel Gentile, c flute
Sylvain Leroux, chromatic tambin, tambin, c flute
Ze Luis, c and alto flute
Stephen Haynes, cornet, flugelhorn, solo alto, pocket trumpet, didgeridoo, conch, kudu horn
Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon
Ivan Barenboim, b flat clarinet
Trina Basu, violin
Julianne Carney-Chung, violin
Sana Nagano, violin
Richard Carr, violin
Stephanie Griffin, viola
Gwen Laster, violin
Jake Charkey, cello
Mia Theodoratus, harp
Kenny Wessel, guitar
Alexis Marcelo, keyboards
Damon Banks, electric bass
Rogerio Boccato, caxixi, mineiro, temple blocks, bells, wood box surdo
Tripp Dudley, cajon, dumbek, frame drums, percussion
Harris Eisenstadt, bata (iya, itotele, okonkolo)
Tim Keiper, gourd, pandeiro, percussion
“This collaboration with the adventurous, multi-cultural collective Brooklyn Raga Massive is an absolutely inspired pairing. For the last seven years, BRM have been fusing Indian classical music, US minimalism and deep jazz to stunning effect. Moreover, both units share an abiding belief in the power of music to transcend cultural boundaries and reach deep spiritual regions. There's a mysterious sense of scale and antiquity to the whole date, even when it veers into the murky, Bitches Brew-style electric jazz, as on ‘Ascent To Now,’ which combines Indian instrumentation with billowing horn charts and driving rim-shot momentum. It's a stunning journey into the unknown.”