MUMBAI: When vocalist Mahesh Kale agreed to collaborate with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra under the conceptual guidance of composer Rahul Ranade, the premise was clear: this would not be fusion, but an amalgamation without the blurring of identities.
In the vocabulary of Hindustani classical music, raaga means colour — a dye that seeps into the listener. When Kale speaks of this collaboration, he returns often to that metaphor. “When the symphony comes in, it brings its own colour – like an accent wall in the temple of raaga music,” he reflects. The image is architectural and deliberate.
From the outset, Ranade was determined to avoid the easy shorthand of cross-cultural novelty. Fusion often seeks to collapse differences for effect; amalgamation allows them to remain visible. In this project, bandishes, thumris and natyageets are not repackaged but recontextualised. The orchestra does not decorate the raaga; it listens to it.
The distinction is more than semantic. Indian classical music rests on improvisation, emotional weather and the sovereignty of the individual performer. Western orchestral practice is anchored in notation, ensemble precision and structural fidelity. To bring them together without diminishing either required a recalibration of assumptions on both sides.
Kale, steeped in the formidable lineage of Pt Jitendra Abhisheki, was clear that the core principles of raagdhari music would remain intact. “The biggest advantage of Indian classical music is that it lets you be you,” he says. Pitch, tempo, repertoire — these remain the vocalist’s prerogative. “That freedom is inviolable. What shifts instead is the imaginative frame. The orchestra does not replace raaga; it refracts it.”
For Ranade, who has collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London in the past, the gulf between systems was both challenge and invitation. As a composer who works instinctively rather than through conventional Western notation, he understood the delicate negotiation required. Western players need a script; Indian musicians breathe within elasticity.
The solution lay in architecture. Carefully written orchestral scores created what Kale calls “walls” — not as confinement, but as structure. “We build homes with four walls,” he muses. “It’s within those walls that we are most vulnerable or most free.” Within these scored frameworks, he could carve spaces for spontaneity — breath, ornamentation and expansion.
For the Budapest Scoring Orchestra — best known for its extensive work in film, television and gaming — the collaboration demanded a shift in instinct. Film scores operate within strict timing cues; resolution is engineered. Raaga, by contrast, unfolds at its own pace, unhurried and exploratory.
Balasubramanian G, the orchestra’s Indian representative, notes that western players had to move beyond equal temperament and harmonic fixity. “In raaga, every note carries emotional gravity. There are pitches between the notes, microtonal inflections and gamakas that cannot be fully captured on staff paper. To engage with this vocabulary required humility — and patience,” he points out.
To accommodate improvisation without sacrificing cohesion, the orchestra developed what one musician described as “internal landmarks” — subtle cues and textures that allowed flexibility. Discipline lay not in rigidity, but in attentiveness. In rehearsal, there were moments when the distinctions dissolved: a sustained orchestral passage beneath an improvised vocal line no longer felt like accompaniment but like collective breath. The strings began to breathe with the singer, as fellow travellers rather than backdrop which fosters both a contemporary timeless dialogue.
Yet the collaboration is already looking outward. Future performances at the Royal Albert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Dubai Opera are in the pipeline. Kale insists that the material itself need not change dramatically for international audiences. What must sharpen instead is context. “Context-building becomes important,” he says. Audiences unfamiliar with India’s raagdhari tradition need a way in — a listening key. “The act of framing that is itself collaborative here. It acknowledges that musical exchange is not only about sound, but about preparing the ear — about building bridges of attention,” says Kale.
(Mahesh Kale Live with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra will be held at 7:30 pm, at NMACC, on February 22.)