What does the Western guitar add at Slide & Strum on The Mystic Frets in Reading?

The guitar adds harmony to a raga. At Slide & Strum on The Mystic Frets, The Great Hall, Reading, 12 September 2026, Giuliano Modarelli plays Western guitar with Pandit Debasis Chakroborty on Indian slide guitar and Dr Sam Evans on tabla.

Indian classical music sets melody over a drone, with no chord movement underneath. Modarelli builds chords behind the raga line, so you hear the same melody against changing harmony.

Modarelli studied Hindustani classical music under sitarist Dharambir Singh and the sarod players Buddhadev Dasgupta and Prattyush Banerjee, and plays it on guitar. His harmony comes forward in the fusion half: three improvised pieces where slide guitar and guitar trade melody, harmony and rhythm over tabla.