After a successful series of shows in 2025, ‘Travellers’ returns for a festival run with performances lined up at Jaipur Music Stage, Kochi Biennale and Soho House Mumbai in January
Soumik will also conduct workshops for young adults across Karnataka in collaboration with Mind and Matter, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering communities through education, mental well-being, and creative expression
Award-winning sarod musician and composer Soumik Datta kickstarts the new year with a fresh set of dates for his much-acclaimed immersive show Travellers. The touring show – which was developed during a summer residency at G5A over the summer of 2025 – will travel to marquee cultural events like the Jaipur Music Stage – held concurrently alongside Jaipur Lit Fest – and Kochi Biennale, with a special performance at Soho House in Mumbai later this month.
Travellers unwraps a genre-blending soundscape that showcases the powerful and transportive nature of audio. It is a show where Indian classical roots meet ambient textures, spoken word, memories and field recordings. At its heart is the sarod’s evocative voice, layered with violin, tabla, and percussion to create what Datta calls “ear cinema”.
For Travellers, Datta is joined on stage by Sayee Rakshith on violin, Debjit Patitundi on tabla, and Sumesh Narayanan on mridangam and percussion.
The show approaches the subject of nation and land through soundscape and layers field recordings and immersive sound design with a virtuosic band to transport audiences across the invisible borders that divide land, places and people.
Woven through the music, we hear the cries of refugees being deported and the plea of news reporters in Gaza, and the solemn warnings of historical figures like Oppenheimer. The sound of missiles echo across the speakers counterbalanced by the sound of sarod, violin and percussion.
Soumik is also periodically releasing music from the show as live recordings, and two singles ‘Freedom (Live in Mumbai)’
https://open.spotify.com/album/0LZaBucmcZiPYPI0CHxf1r?si=MkYxwDavRIO4Po2HRZAboA&nd=1&dlsi=e0481ff0757148ff
and ‘Transit (Live in Jaipur)’
https://open.spotify.com/album/2SinSwBE3Aa5Gbd5cl1hpx?si=12IpBDgTSsi6illVHN5fpA&nd=1&dlsi=5cd58fc0d2904432
“Performing Travellers across India has felt less like a concert and more like a shared reckoning,” says Datta. “Indian audiences possess an ‘active’ way of listening, they don’t just hear the melody; they feel the weight of the stories behind it. To witness a room go silent as the sarod weaves through recordings of news reports and echoes of displacement has been a deeply humbling experience. Now as we take this show to larger festivals in Jaipur and Kochi, I’m not just looking to perform; I’m looking to see how these sounds can bridge the invisible borders we’ve built between ourselves, turning ‘ear cinema’ into a collective moment of healing,” he adds.
Travellers is part of Datta’s seven-month long India tour called Melodies in Slow Motion which will see him travel to all the four corners of the country to perform, collaborate with young musicians, record in unusual spaces, and work with schools and children.
As part of his efforts to work with young adults, he will team up with Coorg-based organisation Mind and Matter for a concert in Bengaluru on January 18 for its ‘Music for Mental Health’ campaign, as well as run workshops at its centres in Bengaluru, Coorg and Mysore.
Dates for Travellers
January 15 – JLF, Jaipur
January 17 – Kochi Biennale
January 26 – Soho House, Mumbai
