APAP Showcase: BRM Presents Ragini Ensemble, Nakshatra and Quadrature

Brooklyn Raga Massive, a musicians collective dedicated to raga inspired music, presents 3 bands that showcase the wide range of musical styles that BRM has to offer. Ragini Ensemble, led by tabla player Roshni Samlal combines electronic beats with South Asian folk forms. Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy’s Nakshatra is a violin duo rooted in raga, Western classical and jazz. The psychedelic raga rock group Quadrature features Neel Murgai on sitar, Indofunk Satish on trumpet, Tripp Dudley drum set and Damon Banks on bass.

Bandleader and tabla player Roshni Samlal crafts an improvisatory  musical narrative that is equal parts a songbook of Indo-Caribbean mythos and dream memory and futurist reframing of the art of the traditional tabla solo.  Presenting songs from the deep, personal waters of her Trinidadian childhood enmeshed within percussion-forward electronic beats, Roshni seeks to trace musical threads from the South Asian continental traditions of ghazal, thumri and Bhojpuri folk to their morphed pop and folk iterations across oceans of forgetting and remembering. With Kane Mathis on oud, Rohan Prabhudesai on harmonium, and Shweta Pandya on vocals.

Violinists Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy reimagine the potential of string chamber music with a unique sound both deeply intimate and cinematically expansive. Rooted in traditions of South Indian classical music, Western chamber music, and jazz, the duo is uniquely positioned to create a sound that feels ancient, orchestral, and contemporary or as The New Yorker put it “free-flowing and globe-spanning.” Combined with the duo’s fluency in improvisation, there is a clear architecture to  their sound that still gives space for the two violins to be delightfully indiscernible and shine individually. Their debut album, Nakshatra, the Sanskrit word for constellation, is a profound exploration of this dance between a collective and singular sound, bursting with energy, playfulness, and a cosmic gravitas.

This musical powerhouse ventures into uncharted territories at the intersection of raga, rock, and jazz. They feature the mesmerizing sitar and effects of Neel Murgai, alongside the innovative firebird trumpet and effects of Indofunk Satish, the rhythmic brilliance of Tripp Dudley on drum set, and the deep grooves of Damon Banks on bass. Emerging from the legendary BRM jam session, Quadrature began their journey with fully improvised, psychedelic sets rooted in ragas, captivating audiences on the streets of Brooklyn. Building upon their foundation, they now showcase original compositions alongside raga renditions and reinterpretations of classics from the likes of Pandit Ravi Shankar, Funkadelic and the Beatles. They have performed at Globalfest, Lincoln Center, Levitt Pavilion, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and more. Inspired by their name, which derives from mathematics and astronomy, Quadrature delves into experimental realms of black hole blues and intricate melodies to create a distinctive sound for this time and space.