Feb 28 2026 to Feb 28 2026 7 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Some homelands you’ve never seen, but you long for them anyway.

Composer and drummer Tarun Balani never set foot in Sindh. Yet he knows it through his grandmother’s stories, through words in a half-remembered language, through melodies that surfaced decades after Partition.

The Tarun Balani Quartet features trumpeter Sonja Ott, guitarist Siddharth Gautam, pianist Luke Marantz. Four musicians from four countries playing music about belonging nowhere and everywhere at once. Contemporary jazz meets Sindhi folk. Improvisation meets tradition. The sound shifts the way memory does when you try to hold it still.

Family archives and oral histories thread through the performance. Live improvisation responds to what the room holds. You’ll be invited to offer something: a memory, a word in a language slipping away, an image of a place you carry. The quartet takes it in. Lets it shape the music. What you share stays, becomes part of what everyone else hears.

Kadahin Milandaasin. When will we meet?

Part of Pravāha 2026, The Body As Space: A Journey Through The Senses. This year’s festival is built around what we hear, smell, touch, taste, and see. Eight days of multisensory experiences through classical music, contemporary dance, installations, and conversations.

Presented by:

Performers

Tarun Balani
Drums
Tarun Balani is an artist, musician, and educator who creates immersive sonic experiences through both live performances and studio recordings. His practice weaves together improvisation, composition, performance, and technology.

His recent works—including the critically acclaimed albums Kadahin Milandaasin ملنداسين هن and Where the Ice Meets the Water (2023)—span contemporary jazz, ambient electronic music, and sonic storytelling, exploring themes of climate change, migration, and identity.

His sound installation Listening Room draws on deeply personal experiences of climate anxiety and ecological grief, while also holding space for resilience and hope in an ever-changing world.

More about his work: www.tarunbalani.com

Sonja Ott
Trumpet
Sonja Ott is a versatile trumpeter on the Swiss jazz scene, who has lived in Bern for over 10 years. In 2019, she completed her Master of Arts in Education and has since played in various projects and bands, including Patent Ochsner, her trio TIE DREI, Kristina Brunner’s Ländlerorchester, Nina Reiter’s MetaLogue, and the Euroradio Jazz Orchestra.

In 2024, she founded the KINORA 6tet and the SO LIEB 4tet with Philipp Leibundgut. She is also a co-founder, co-director, and trumpet teacher at the music school “Musik im Dach,” which was established in 2019 and now has over 240 students. In addition to her musical activities, she teaches BEKUBE classes in Wohlen and is completing her primary school teaching degree at the Bern University of Teacher Education.

Siddharth Gautam
Guitar
A Delhi-based guitarist with deep roots in tabla and a practice grounded in improvisation, Siddharth Gautam works at the intersection of texture, space, and melodic restraint. His musical journey spans Bangalore’s live circuits, Mumbai’s studio work, and Delhi’s evolving improvised-music scene.
Alongside collaborations with artists and ensembles such as Thermal and a Quarter, The Revisit Project, and the Radha Thomas Ensemble, Siddharth leads projects including Django Twins and SAS Trio, where subtlety, interaction, and sonic patience take precedence over form.

Endorsed by D’Addario Strings and Walden Guitars, Siddharth is recognised for his sensitive touch, intuitive improvisation, and ability to shape immersive sound worlds. He is equally committed to mentoring young musicians, emphasising deep listening and the cultivation of an individual musical voice.

Luke Marantz
Piano
Luke Marantz is an internationally acclaimed pianist and composer based in Brooklyn, New York. Described by NPR as “among the best young American jazz pianists” and Downbeat Magazine as “a pianist who paints at the keyboard with musicality”.

Equally adept at a piano or synthesizer, his music organically combines jazz and improvisation with elements of electronic music, contemporary classical and post rock. He has performed at seminal halls, venues and festivals across the Americas, Europe and Japan and has appeared on over 15 recordings as a sideman.

His debut recording, “Embers”, a collection of original works for solo piano was released on Afterworld Records.