The sun yawns, stretches, and slowly peeks from behind the five-century-old majestic Mehrangarh fort. It wakes to the soothing tunes of Sufi music and Manganiyars’ bhajans at Jodhpur RIFF. The 5 am dawn concert is among the many firsts that the not-for-profit festival introduced to the world of music. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the Jodhpur Rajasthan International Folk Festival (October 22 to 26) will once again create some astounding, never-heard-before music.
As one of the first music festivals in the country, RIFF pioneered collaborations between local folk and international musicians. It took the music of the Langa, Manganiyar, Meghwal, Bhil, Damami and other local communities, only performed in villages, to a global stage. “I'm very aware that we've been part of a very, very interesting development in the larger ecosystem of live music in India,” says Divya Bhatia, festival director and artistic producer. “By that I mean that we were amongst the first festivals, and today there are hundreds of festivals,” he adds.
When RIFF started, no one in Mumbai or Delhi knew of any Rajasthani folk musicians. They hadn’t even heard about Manganiyars, Langas or Mame Khan. “I think the Rajasthani folk artists today are better known than many other folk musician communities across India,” he adds. There is no denying that it all started at this festival supported by Jodhpur’s royalty.
The powerhouse vocalist Bhanwari Devi was first introduced to a mainstream festival audience by Jodhpur RIFF in 2010. After her performance here, she, a member of the Bhopa community, was scouted for national platforms, even leading to an iconic feature on Coke Studio @ MTV alongside Bollywood composer Ram Sampath for the song Kattey.
The SAZ Trio of Sadiq Khan (dholak), Asin Khan (Sindhi sarangi and vocals) and Zakir Khan Langa (khartal/vocals) performed at the festival for years as backing instrumentalists. The festival's directors packaged and debuted them as a contemporary folk group. They eventually became the breakout faces of the millennial generation of Langa musicians. Under the festival's mentorship, they have transitioned into global touring artists, performing at the prestigious Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow early this year.
Asin Khan Langa, a skilled player of the rare Sindhi Sarangi, also credits Jodhpur RIFF for his success. He first performed at the festival in 2010, and then went on to win the prestigious Aga Khan Music Award in 2022. Over the years, he has performed with Finnish-Rajasthani Folk Project alongside Nordic nyckelharpa player Emilia Lajunen and other world musicians. “Before Jodhopur RIFF, my world was small. Never had I imagined that I'd perform outside my neighbourhood, let alone with foreign musicians and on a global stage,” says Khan.
It was in Jodhpur that Khan first performed with musicians from outside his immediate circle. “I didn’t understand their language, but realised that music breaks all barriers,” he adds. Khan also claims that the support of the festival, which has now started a training programme for rural musicians, has also helped revive the Sindhi Sarangi. “Over a hundred kids are learning the instrument and other music traditions in and around his village of Badnawa.
A lot more has happened over the last two decades. Other Rajasthani folk artists too have matched frequencies with Sami Yoiks from Scandinavia, Andean acoustic traditions (cumbia, zamba), Cabo Verdean guitar/cavaquinho music, and Celtic folk music. There’s also been Jazz, Blues, and Urban Grooves’ traditional string and percussion rhythms colliding with modern brass and syncopation. Local acoustical instruments (like the khartal, kamaicha, or bhapang) have been fused with synthesised sounds and contemporary songwriting. Performances have also been built around Nirguna spiritual traditions, Qawwali and Rajwadi Maand.
This year too, the line-up is stellar.
DOBBY, the ARIA Award-winning Filipino-Murrawari musician, drummer, rapper, and composer from Australia, will perform in India for the first time on the Jodhpur RIFF stage, channelling storytelling, cultural preservation, and activism into music.
Closer to home, Mangka Mayanglambam, folk musician, educator and advocate for Manipuri performing arts, is one of the last custodians of the Pena, the Meitei single-string lute once reserved for royal courts and male players. Her performances weave together music, movement and dance. She also mentors a new generation of women to play the instrument.
Karolina Cicha, singer, composer and self-styled one-woman orchestra, fluent in Yiddish and Esperanto, has devoted her life to reviving the vanishing music of Poland's Tartar minority. At Jodhpur RIFF, she will collaborate with Anita Dangi, custodian of Rajasthan's classical Rajwaadi Maand, in a first-ever pairing of two women safeguarding two disappearing traditions.
Finnish-Rajasthani collaboration with Sindhi Sarangi player Asin Khan Langa of SAZ (the celebrated folk trio from Rajasthan’s Langa community)— uniting two string traditions: each renowned, on opposite sides of the world, for sounding uncannily like the human voice.
Brothers Ghewar Khan and Darre Khan Manganiyar, sons and torchbearers of the legendary Padma Shri Sakar Khan, are among the last true masters of the kamaicha.