Purbayan Chatterjee: ‘There is so much nepotism in our country’

Acclaimed sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee has a busy schedule He recently released two singles from Feathered Creatures his album that releases in June Soon after the release Chatterjee and guitarist Mark Lettieri of Grammywinning jazz band Snarky Puppy will perform in Kolkata In between planning rehearsing and gearing up for the album the musician talks to midday about taking a new sonic direction with Feathered Creatures and the wall of nepotism in arts that he aims to break with his foundationExcerpts from the interviewWhat inspired you to create this albumThe sound of this album is youthdriven A lot of artistes were pleasantly surprised that I went down this direction because they couldnrsquot imagine a classical artiste doing that I initially started off making an electronica album My content is ragabased and Mark explores jazz funk So raga and jazz funk come together in a canvas of electronica and tranceAt what stage did Mark Lettieri join youInitially it was Nakul Chouk the albumrsquos music producer and I writing the songs Mark got involved about two years ago I had played a gig with Snarky Puppy in Mumbai Thatrsquos how I met Mark and Michael League When I took this album to Michael he said lsquoThis needs some guitarsrsquo Mark was the first person I thought ofMark and you have planned to perform the album in Kolkata in AugustThe album will be out in June We are bringing Mark to Kolkata in August But this is a oneoff event The actual promotion starts with a North American tour in May 2027 when we will go to SFJazz Centre Barclays Centre and Los Angeles Then I plan to bring it to India in 2027 I think that Markrsquos fans in the US deserve to hear it firstWhy soThere is a great audience for instrumental music in the West Also to be honest our country often tends to go gaga about things that the West goes gaga about You also spearheaded the Purbayan Arts and Music FoundationI moved from Kolkata to Mumbai about 14 years ago to further my career but also because I liked Mumbai as a city Then I realised how difficult it is to start from scratch in a new city So my vision over the last decade has been to help young artistes who move from other cities to make their careers Thatrsquos how the foundation came aboutI remember I played at Shankarjirsquos Shankar Mahadevan Ganpati where Sachin Tendulkar heard me Everybody took a selfie with him I was a little shy but he called me over made me meet his family and appreciated me It feels surreal because in this country there is so much nepotism that the first question is lsquoWhose kid are you Who is your fatherrsquo Irsquom trying to work hard to beat those obstacles through this foundationDid you knowPurbayan Chatterjee and Mark LettieriPurbayan Chatterjee and Mark Lettieri performed some songs from the album at the Neeta Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in January At that time the album was called lsquoSitar StoriesrsquoRakesh Chaurasia and Ojas AdhiyaOn May 30 Purbayan Chatterjee will kick off his sixcity India tour with flautist Rakesh Chaurasia tabla player Ojas Adhiya and percussionist Shikhar Naad Qureshi