Raag Bhairavi | Trinity Trio | Live at Kala Festival 2025, Cambridge

Pandit Debasis Chakroborty (Indian Slide Guitar), Deepak Shah (piano), and Ustad Akram Khan (tabla) performed together as the Trinity Trio at Eternal Echoes, held at Lee Seng Tee Hall, Cambridge, on 21 September 2025 as part of Kala Festival 2025.

Raag Bhairavi belongs to the Bhairavi thaat and carries all four komal swaras (Rishabh, Gandhar, Dhaivat, and Nishad), with Madhyam as the melodic anchor. Its characteristic meend glissandos, particularly between Gandhar and Rishabh and between Dhaivat and Pancham, give the raga its quality of sustained, inward feeling. Though classified as an early morning raga, Bhairavi is the traditional raga to close a concert, regardless of the hour.

Chakroborty shapes the raga's melodic lines through the glissando technique native to the slide guitar, where each phrase can sustain and bend in ways that mirror a vocalist's approach. Shah's piano adds harmonic weight at the Madhyam, holding the raga in its Hindustani frame. Akram Khan, drawing on the Ajrada Gharana's precise stroke vocabulary, holds the rhythmic frame and gives the melodic exchange room to move. All three musicians listen closely throughout, and the set closes with the settled finality Bhairavi brings to any concert.