Mala Sekhri On Curating Musical Experiences That Break The Barrier Between The Artist And The Audience

In this age of instant access, streaming our favourite artists is a tap away, a premium ticket can get us closer to them at a concert, but what cannot be accessed through a screen or an exclusive ticket is intimacy. To truly exchange with our favourite musician, you want to be in a space where the distance between them and you disappears, where you aren't listening through headphones or watching them from afar, but sitting a few feet away, experiencing the music as it unfolds in real time. This is the kind of experience that Mala Sekhri, Founder and CEO, MuseMusic attempts to curate through her musical programmes, the upcoming India Music Retreat being her latest, and she speaks about them with a palpable passion when we meet virtually on a Wednesday afternoon.

I tell her how the teaser left me intrigued and wanting to know more. She says that is precisely the sentiment she and her team hope to evoke when they curate an experience like this.

For Sekhri, curating such an experience begins with creating a deeper relationship between the listener and the musician. 

“Today, the consumption of music is at an all-time high. You're on YouTube, you're on Spotify, you're listening to it on FM, etc., and concerts are being held all over the world. People travel for music now. If you look at Coachella or other music festivals around the world, people actually travel for them.

Here, this is not a tourist destination. This is a cultural destination. This is a cleansing-your-soul destination. This is about wanting to understand something which you have always appreciated but didn't know how to interact with in a meaningful way,” she says.

She further offers an example. “You were listening to Raag Yaman in classical music, right? You're listening to it on YouTube, or you actually study it, you know the notes, you hear a recording somewhere. But when you listen to it in a space where the stage disappears, where you're one with the musician, that is something else.

Our music was always meant to be a state of energy. You're sitting there, I'm singing, I'm exchanging something with you, and that exchange can only happen in that proximity,” she smiles.

She explains how her entire team works towards creating a mahaul, an atmosphere that allows audiences to receive and experience that energy in real time. Sekhri believes that while you can buy almost anything, you cannot buy heart and soul. “You can't buy the exchange that happens when a musician wants to give his or her all to you, that audience of one, because that's what our music was meant to be,” she says, speaking about the experience planned in Jaipur from September 18 to 21.

I segue into asking what retreats such as these reveal about India’s musical map from a wider lens, and her answer is fascinating. 

She tells me, “If you look at the musical map of India, there is no space in it. If I plot the diverse forms of music we have—if I plot the classical traditions, the gharanas, pop, folk, and everything else—ghazal, poetry, take what you will—and if I plot it on the map of India, there's no space.

For Sekhri, music is inseparable from India’s identity and the way its communities communicate. 

“Our weddings—whether you look at a wedding in Kerala or a wedding in Kashmir or Punjab, and everywhere in between—our wedding communication and narrative is through music.

Our Partition story, when we got partitioned from what was India, right? That separation, that lament, that sadness is a story in music. Gharanas got divided. Our folk musicians became an intrinsic part of our families because, guess what, they turned up every time we had a birth, a celebration, a wedding or a special occasion.

So, what is music? It's communication. It's how communities communicate, albeit in a very lyrical, rhythmic and lyrical way, depending on where you come from.”

As a curator, Sekhri looks at the space first. Her work has taken her to some extraordinary settings, she has curated luxury experiences at the Denmark Tavern, believed to date back to 1786; brought 60 people together at Tulsidas ji’s home, where the Ramcharitmanas was written; and placed the Sundarkand alongside Sajan Mishra and his son, among several other experiences she shares during our conversation. Each one seems to belong to an itinerary that most guests would rarely encounter.

For the upcoming India Music Retreat, over three days, she and her team are bringing about 46 musicians across 16 concerts.

The experience, Sekhri says, is designed to break down the walls between you and your favourite artists. There are no VIP tickets, no designated hierarchies of access and no premium seats that put some listeners closer than others. You simply arrive, find your seat and experience the music live, with the artist close enough to feel like they are performing with you.