Darbar on Sky Arts 2 HD: Rupak Kulkarni (flute) with Anuradha Pal (tabla)

Visit www.skyarts.co.uk/darbar for broadcast schedule.

Program 4: Broadcasting on SkyArts Channel 257 and 259HD from 17th August 2009 every day at 7pm for two weeks.

Few Indian instruments are as evocative as the simple bansari or bamboo flute. This simple bamboo instrument, in the hands of Rupak Kulkarni, a student of maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, produces one of the most haunting and captivating sounds in Indian classical music.

Darbar Festival 2009

Described by one artist as the G20 summit of Indian music and by World Music magazine Songlines as surely Britains best festival of south Asian music, the Darbar Festival is says arts journalist, Jameela Siddiqui a place where everyone expects and gets the highest quality performances of Indian classical music.

Indian classical music is arguably one of the most complex and complete systems of music ever developed. What began as Vedic chants several thousand years ago developed into a sophisticated musical system by the 3rd century.

The music is based on a single melody line, which is played over a fixed drone and the performance is based melodically on particular ragas and rhythmically on talas. The music has been passed down orally. Improvisation predominates and written notation, when used, is skeletal.

This series from the Darbar Festival, presented by Lopa Kothari, features ten outstanding performances from artists from the two main strands of Indian classical music, the North Indian Hindustani and South Indian Carnatic traditions.