London Ragas: Atem in Klang | Pandit Ajay Prasanna

The Tate Institute is at 1 Wythes Road, Silvertown, London E16 2DN, in East London.

Henry Tate paid for the building in 1887 as a social club for workers at the Tate Sugar Refinery. Newham Council owns the building. ReSpace Projects holds a 25-year lease and got the keys in March 2024. ReSpace is restoring it as a community venue, and the building hosts events as parts of it reopen.

For travel, see how to get to our London venues. For other concerts in the city, see where to hear Indian classical music live in London.

You can hear Hindustani (North Indian) classical music live in London at London Ragas, KalaSudha's concert series in London. Its evenings are baithaks: the audience sits close to the musicians. London Ragas can take place at different venues across London, and KalaSudha plans to add more baithaks in other parts of London. KalaSudha is based in London, so every concert tour it organises also plays London once.

See how to book tickets for a London concert and how to get to the venues.

Pandit Ajay Prasanna is a flute player from a musical family. He carries forward the legacy of his father, Bholanath Prasanna, a flute master whose students include Hariprasad Chaurasia. He plays in the style of the Banaras gharana. He has performed across India and abroad, including at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and at festivals in Asia and Europe. His honours include Grammy nominations, the Global Indian Music Award for his album Cinema, the Sangeet Ratna Award and the Surmani Award.

Kayam Hussain is a British tabla player based near Rochdale, in the north of England. He is the son and student of Ustad Shahbaz Hussain, and he grew up inside the tradition, learning at home and appearing on stage beside his father from a young age. He has played tabla with Gorillaz. At KalaSudha, he accompanies visiting masters at the London Ragas baithak.

A bansuri is a transverse flute cut from a single length of seasoned bamboo. It has no keys and no moving parts, only six finger holes, or seven in Pannalal Ghosh's style. The maker burns or drills the blow hole and the finger holes. The player controls pitch through the lips at the blow hole, breath pressure and half-holing, covering a finger hole in part, which gives the slides and bends of a raga. Until the 1940s it was not thought a concert instrument; Pannalal Ghosh made a larger bansuri for the classical stage.