“It’s beautiful, expansive, and majestic” (UK Vibe)
“Riveting…soulful” (The New York Times)
“While listeners of a certain generation might recognize sitarist Ravi Shankar or recall how bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones used Indian instrumentation on some of their ’60s hits, BRM members seek to redefine classical Indian music in the new century.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Brooklyn Raga Massive is an adventurous nonprofit musicians’ collective that creates cross-cultural understanding through the lens of South Asian classical music by providing direct support to artists, fostering collaboration through our iconic concerts and jam sessions, facilitating cultural exchange through educational initiatives, and producing transcendent, and often massive, performances, festivals, and one-of-a-kind albums.
The idea of Brooklyn Raga Massive was born in 2012 during a weekly concert and jam session at a local Prospect Heights venue. What began as a casual series, flourished and grew into a mainstay of the New York City arts scene, cultivating a vibrant community of diverse musicians and music lovers.
In keeping with the inclusive spirit of these jam sessions, our collective became an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2015, created by musicians, for musicians. Composed of 100+ collaborating artists rooted in South Asian classical music, the collective has since grown to encompass many genres and traditions from around the world.
Brooklyn Raga Massive’s original ensembles have performed across the country at venues such as Lincoln Center, Fotografiska NY, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Pioneer Works, The Rubin Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Kennedy Center, and more. Through the curation of our signature series, festivals, and educational programs, we have brought raga into conversation with musical traditions coming from Iraq, Cuba, Morocco, Japan and more.This practice of cross-cultural collaboration both reflects the current global landscape and enables BRM to serve as an incubator of expansive, innovative, new genres of music indigenous to Brooklyn.
