Norwich Ragas: Deepak Shah (Kala Festival 2025)

Deepak Shah, the raga pianist from Mumbai, plays Hindustani ragas on grand piano on this live Indian classical piano album. KalaSudha recorded it on 19 September 2025 at The Assembly House, Norwich, where his set opened the Kala Festival 2025 double bill Norwich Ragas: Piano & Slide Guitar Unbound. He has carried ragas onto the grand piano through more than 3,000 concerts over 25 years. His grandfather Shantilal Shah started his training, and film scores for more than 30 Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi and Bhojpuri productions run alongside his concert work.

Three connected movements of Raag Yaman come first, in the old instrumental order of alap, jod and jhala. The alap unfolds without pulse, the jod sets a slow inner beat, and the jhala drives that beat into fast, ringing repetition. Yaman belongs to the Kalyan thaat and to the first prahar, or three-hour watch, of the night. Its raised fourth, tivra Ma, gives the raga its wide, expectant sound, and the piano's sustain lets Shah hold phrases a plucked string would have to release.

From Yaman the set moves to Raag Puriya Dhanashri, a sunset raga of the Purvi thaat. It joins the frame of Puriya to the colour of Dhanashri and rests on a firm Sa-Pa axis. Shah ends with a devotional piece, nearly 12 unhurried minutes that bring the recital to a quiet close. The five tracks run 50 minutes 38 seconds. The second half of the Norwich double bill, which is not on this album, was the Indian slide guitar of Pandit Debasis Chakroborty with the tabla player Ustad Akram Khan. KalaSudha released Shah's set on 19 October 2025. It streams on Spotify, and KalaSudha members stream live concerts and recordings on its own platform.