GemArts and The Glasshouse present:
Riverside Ragas: Jasdeep Singh Degun
British. Indian. Shifting the musical landscape.
Composer, arranger and improviser; consummate soloist and generous collaborator; custodian of tradition and restless innovator, multi-award winning sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun is an anomaly indeed. Unconstrained by genre, the Leeds-born virtuoso’s extraordinary skill and creativity are reshaping the musical landscape for his peers, and for generations to come.
Amid artist residencies and fellowships, an international concert schedule, royal command performances and the well-deserved laurels of recent years, Jasdeep’s lifelong training in gayaki ang – a lyrical approach to the sitar that mimics the human voice – has remained his anchor and his passion.
In October 2024 make sure you catch Jasdeep, the first British Asian musician, and the first sitar player, to receive received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Award for Best Instrumentalist at The Glasshouse.
Need to know
Price: Under 25s tickets from £8.40. Standard £16.90. Family tickets (4 people; combination of adults and children) £39.38
Stage Times: Announced nearer showtime.
Age: Under 14s must be accompanied by an adult.
“It’s really not a matter of different worlds meeting… It’s just me: as much as I’m immersed in Indian classical music, I’m a product of this country; I’m a British composer”
– Jasdeep Singh Degun
Watch and listen
About the artist
Jasdeep Singh Degun, taught sitar by Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, premiered his concerto Arya in 2020 with the Orchestra of Opera North and released his debut album, Anomaly, in 2021 on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records. On which he collaborated with Nitin Sawhney. As Opera North’s 2022 Artist in Residence, he fused orchestral music with Indian classical improvisation in Monteverdi’s Orpheus, earning critical acclaim and awards. In 2023, he won the Asian Achievers’ Art and Culture Award and Best Newcomer at the Songlines Awards. Earlier this year he became the first sitar player and British Asian musician to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Award for Best Instrumentalist.
