PASSAGES

Anoushka Shanka’s curating of the Brighton Festival 2025 has divided opinion, whilst many of us have been excited by her choices and emphasis on performers and work from South Asia, there have been detractors. Well more fool them and their prejudices that have at times and at worst bordered on racism and have certainly been lacking in artistic open mindedness.

Last night at the Dome Concert Hall, she took to the stage with The Britten Sinfonia, Purcell Singers and the most extraordinarily talented bunch of classical Indian musicians to deliver Passages. Passages is a work of collaboration made by her father Ravi Shankar and American composer Philip Glass. The two met in the mid-1960s when Glass helped Shankar on a film score. In 1990 the two released this work, combining Indian classical forms with the layered minimalist style of Glass.

Minimal is an interesting word when applied to Glass, yes there is something minimal about his composition but there is a layered complexity too, a fascinating textural building of sound, rhythm and harmonic progression. He weaves all together in gradually developing and sometimes challenging forms, creating an absorbing whole.

Working with Shankar the differences in those musical forms sit together in an engaging and comfortable way, what might seem like an unlikely pairing works brilliantly.

This is not easy listening, it is demanding, difficult even, but in a wonderful way, like solving a complex puzzle, and once the ear is attuned it is equally satisfying.

Conductor Robert Ames masterfully is in control of these two first class ensembles, but there are notable differences between the two. The Sinfonia play from written scores, understandably so for work by Glass which is never simple. In contrast the Indian musicians have no score, playing from memory. Secondly the Sinfonia are focused intensely on those scores, so much so that there are few smiles. The Indian musicians smile and seem to be fully immersed in a very different, almost spiritual way.

The combination though is superb and one could not help to feel involved and privileged to be a part of this rare live performance of a work that I will now have to listen to again and again to relive those moments of musical magic.

Anoushka Shankar’s presence, playing a work written by her father made this a very special event, and despite some irritating electronic sound issues, loud cracks and pops, and a cluster of coughing audience members, the whole could not be ruined.

Andrew Kay

9 May

Brighton Dome Concert Hall

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