Sandeep Bhagwati

Music

Professor Sandeep Bhagwati is a multiple award-winning composer, theatre director and media artist. His compositions and comprovisations in all genres (including six operas) have been performed by leading performers at leading venues and festivals worldwide. He has directed international music festivals and intercultural exchange projects with Indian and Chinese musicians and leading new music ensembles. He was Professor of Composition at Karlsruhe Music University and Composer-in-Residence at the IRCAM Paris, ZKM Karlsruhe, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, IEM Graz, CalArts Los Angeles, Heidelberg University and Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow.

In 2014, a retrospective at the Time of Music Festival in Viitasaari/Finland showcased his compositions and comprovisations. The 2023/24 season of the Quebec Society for Contemporary Music SMCQ was dedicated entirely to his work, with countless performances and premieres, a children's comic book about his life, a pedagodical guide on his oeuvre and other publications and honors.

As Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Arts at Concordia University from 2006-2016, Professor Bhagwati founded and currently directs matralab, a research/creation center for intercultural and interdisciplinary arts. His current work centers on comprovisation, inter-traditional aesthetics, the aesthetics of interdisciplinarity, gestural theatre, sonic theatre and interactive visual and non-visual scores, interdisciplinary 'comprovisation,' live-dramaturgy, and experimental performance topologies.

He was, between 2009-2011 director of Hexagram Concordia, the research-creation centre for arts and technology, and from 2018-2022 director of the international TENOR Research Network for Technologies in Notation and Representation. He is a co-founder and editor of "TURBA-The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation".

He has founded and is the musical director of three ensembles of trans-traditional experimental music in Montréal ("Ecstasies of Influence"), Berlin ("Extrakte") and Pune ("Sangeet Prayog"). Extrakte has recently been reformatted as the global musicians network "Sabdagatitara", of which he is the artistic director and which will be ensemble-in-residence at the Darmstadt Spring Meeting in April 2025. In May 2025, he will also be a faculty member at the "Soundweavings" Workshop at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In his theoretical work, he has introduced two new terms to musical discourse: "comprovisation" and "trans-traditional musicking", both now widely used.

He is a sought-after keynote speaker and public speaker at conferences and in venues worldwide. He has published widely, mostly in book collections and periodicals. The first collection of his writings on trans-traditional musicking will appear at Wolke Verlag in 2026 in a bilingual (english/german) edition.

He has worked with many leading musicians of many diverse traditions including Wu Wei, Moritz Ernst, Nguyen Thanh Thuy, Gabriel Dharmoo, Vinny Golia, Catherine Milliken, Marco Blaauw, Mei Han, Moritz Eggert, Anja Lechner, Stefan Østersjø, Elinor Frey, Zal Sissokho, Lori Freedman, Jieun Kang, Jocelyn Clarke, Marie Annick Beliveau, Lucy Zhao, Didem Başar, Kouame Sereba, Taavi Oramo, Lorraine Vaillancourt, Shubha Mudgal, Simon Rattle, Dhruba Ghosh, Sarah Maria Sun, Vincent Royer, Aneesh Pradhan, Sameer Dublay,  Mike Svoboda, Dave Taylor, Peter Evans, Marc Soustrot, Uday Bhawalkar, Gebrüder Teichmann, Kiya Tabassian, Peter Ruzicka, Lau Bonitz, Mark Applebaum, Aiyun Huang, Nicholas Isherwood, David Rosenboom, Farhan Sabbagh. 

As well as with renowned ensembles and orchestras such as Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Quasar Saxophone Quartet Montréal, Hezarfen Ensemble Istanbul, China Found Music Workshop Taipei, Ensemble Modern Frankfurt,  Klangforum Wien, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne Montréal, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn,  Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Arraymusic Toronto, Bozzini Quartet Montréal, Sonar Quartett Basel, Berner Streichquartett, etc.

He has also collaborated with many artists in fields other than music such as theatre personalities Johannes Schütz, Jürgen Gosch, Gerardian Rijnders, Jürgen Holtz, Pierre Bokma, and others as well as with poets/writers Monika Rinck, Ranjit Hoskote, Lance Olsen, René Daniel Dubois, Christian Filips, Yoko Tawada, Yang Liang, Arundhati Subramaniam, Dilip Chitre, Amit Chaudhuri, among others. 

Awards & Grants

1991 European Composition Prize (Academy of Arts Berlin)
1992 Ernst-von-Siemens Prize (for the A*devantgarde Festival)
1995 Cité des Arts Paris Bursary
1997 Residency at Fondation Royaumont (France)
1997 Residency at Abbaye de la Prée (France)
1998 Fellowship at ZKM Center for Arts and Media Karlsruhe (Germany)
1999 Composer-in-Residence at Institute for Electronic Music Graz (Austria)
2000 Composer-in-Residence at Beethoven Orchestra Bonn (Germany)
2003 Composer-in-Residence at Darmstadt Spring Festival (Germany)
2003 Ernst-von-Siemens Prize (for the KlAngRiffe Festival)
2004 Composer-in-Residence at Villa Concordia Bamberg (Germany)
2006 Canada Research Chair Award
2006 Composer-in-Residence at "links - biennial for contemporary music" Heidelberg (Germany)
2007 Composer-in-Residence at California Institute for the Arts Los Angeles (USA)
2009 Guest Professor at the Centre for Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg (Germany)
2013/14 Guest Professor at the University of Arts UdK Berlin
2014 Composer-in-Residence, Time of Music Festival Viitasaari Finland
2015 Hind Rattan Award (Jewel of India Award)

Selected compositions

Stage

- Quênâh - Szenen einer Katastrophe (music theatre, text by the composer, after interviews with Bosnian refugees, Elias Canetti, Franz Kafka, Michel Butor, Heiner Müller, Gabrielle Adler, Henry Miller), 7 mixed voices a capella, 1995;
- Macht Masse Mensch (music theatre, text by Gunna Wendt & the composer, after Elias Canetti), baritone, 3 actors, 5 mixed voices, small orchestra (16 players), 1995;
- Three Women Trois Femmes Drei Frauen (music theatre work/installation, text by the composer), female voice, actress, female cellist, computer, 1996-97;
- Ramanujan (5 act opera, libretto by the composer), 10 soloists, violin, small orchestra (20 players), live computer, 1997;
- stroboscopic arias (abstract-movement scenes, text by the composer), voice, female dancer, double bass, 2000- (ongoing work; may be performed by one performer);
- Prinzessin Süssüsan (Princess Süssüsan) (opera for children, libretto: Peter Truschner & the composer), 4 adult singers/mimes, 7 child soloists, 3 children choirs, medium-sized orchestra (30 players), 2004-2007

Orchestral

- Tag - Sinfonia sacra (text by Novalis), boy soprano, soprano, baritone, mixed chorus, large orchestra, 1993;
- Ritual Virility Machine, for large orchestra, 1998;
- Entrances, for large orchestra, 2000;
- l'essence de l'insensible, small orchestra (12 players) (around hall, without conductor), click track, 2000;
- Wörterbuch der Winde (texts by Percy Bysshe Shelley, St.-John Perse, the composer), Chinese ensemble (male voice [Chinese opera tradition], sheng, gu zheng, pipa, liuqin, yangqin, percussion), Western ensemble (soprano, flute, clarinet, viola, cello, double bass, percussion) (2 conductors), 2002;
- Sangit Sambhav (Origin of Music) (with Ashok Ranade) small orchestra (13 players), 2003;
- inside a native land (concerto), trombone, 8 groups (16 players) (without conductor), live electronics, 2002-04;
- RASAS - Ritual and Sophisticated Areas of Sound, for small orchestra (16 players), 2000- (ongoing conceptual work);
- Samagam (Together) (with Shubha Mudgal & Aneesh Pradhan), Khayal singer, Drupad singer, Tabla, Sarangi, Tanpura, 18 musicians, 2006;
- Vineland Stelae (concerto), trombone, 8 soloists (sarod, shakuhachi, tabla, gamelan ensemble, ewe drums, saxophone, jazz trumpet, marimba), 16 musicians, live-electronics and video projections, 2007
- Racines Ephémères, concert-installation for 8 wandering musicians and obbligato conductor, 2008
- Stele III for James Tenney, version for string orchestra, 2009

Chamber music

- Sonata, cello, piano, 1990;
- Variations (string quartet no. 1), 1991;
- Agni or 45 Modes of Easy Listening, two pianos, 1993;
- Dornenstück, piano 4 hands, 1994;
- alam al-mithal (string quartet no. 2), 1995;
- why sing why cry, violin, cello, 2000;
- a whirl of perspectives, violin, 2000;
- PindarExzisen (texts by Pindar, Friedrich Hölderlin), untrained female voice,
- speaker, shaman, dulcimer, zither, viola, 2002;
- awkwardly skirting disaster, cello, 2001-03;
- MORA, bass clarinet, trombone, cello, obbligato conductor, 2004;
- Petits Traités, 2 electric guitars, 2004;
- STELE I, prepared piano, 2004;
- Illusies van Harder en Zacht (Illusions of Noise and of Silence), for sheng, guzheng, viola, violoncello (other versions exist) 2004-2006 (ongoing work);
- STELE II for Wolfgang Stryi, for violin, cello, bass clarinet and gong, 2005;
- Traces and Shadows, sheng, 2006;
- STELE III for James Tenney, version for string quartet, 2006;
- Scardanelli Sonate, piano, 2007;
- Transience for 1-3 aerophones and 1-3 chordophones, from different traditions, 2008
- Souvenir de Wien, string quartet, 2009

Choral

- Hölderlin Chöre (text by Friedrich Hölderlin), mixed choir a capella, 1986 ;
- Exterritorial III, 'Finisterre' (text by Fernando Pessoa), 12 mixed voices, organ, 1993;
- chants translucent ephemeral (text by the composer), any 1-36 voices, computer ad libitum, 1996;
- Atish-e-Zaban (Fires of the Tongue) (Text by Faiz Ahmad Faiz), 6 solo singers (SMATBarB) a capella, 2006

Vocal

- Exterritorial II, 'Still allein' (text by Ernst Herbeck), baritone, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, percussion, 1993;
- Raggerlieder (5 songs, text by Bernhard Ragger), soprano, piano, 1994;
- Katarakt Meer Katarakt (text by Dylan Thomas), soprano, string quartet, 2 percussion, 1995;
- Tre Canti di Sigismondo d'India, mezzo-soprano, string quartet, 1995;
- Grünbein Lieder (4 songs, text by Durs Grünbein), mezzo-soprano, string quartet, 2000;
- songs on nothing (4 songs, text by Dilip Chitre), mezzo-soprano, violin, 2002;
- Lieder des Lichts (4 songs, text by Raoul Schrott), mezzo-soprano, cello, 2003;
- To those born far away from home (text by the composer), mezzo-soprano, violin, cello, 2003

ELECTROACOUSTIC

- no body no cry, 21 min, CD (radio art), 1998;
- neither here nor there, 240 min, 4 channel live installation, 2000;
- 4'33" absolute zero remix, 5 min, CD (radio art), 2001;
- Die Gesänge der Ghat Biwa, 49', CD (radio art), 2002;
- Bombay Echo Chamber, 60 min, 4 channel installation, 2003;
- Cliff! (on a poem by Ulrike Draesner), 27 min, CD (radio art), 2004;
- all over again (on a poem by Philip Larkin),1 min, CD (radio art), 2004

MULTIMEDIA / PERFORMANCE

- Cantus ad ventum (site-specific performance/open-air event, text by the composer), 5 early music voices, 3 mixed choruses, 4 hot-air balloons, 1995;
- Mind the Gaps (performance, text by the composer), female voice, speaker, 12 objects (in vitrines), light/room installation, live electronics,
- 1995;
- Schnee Schrift Sprache Schweben (performance, text by the composer), 2 folk voices, speaker, Alphorn, dulcimer, zither, film, 1995;
- Zukunftsmusik (performance, all players also roar, speak, whisper), soprano, English horn, trumpet, violin, double bass, 1999;
- making music (site-/date-specific light/audio/object installations, audience-participation/text performances, text by the composer), voice, dancer, small orchestra (14 players), 2000;
- neither here nor there (site-/performer-specific light/audio/film installations, text performances, text by the composer), butoh dancer, kathak dancer, performer (with interactive body suit), carillon, percussion, live-electronics, live-video, 2000;
- urban.dis.urban (multimedia-concert installation), film (by Yvette Mattern), 2001 (includes compositions, remixes by 10 composers); >>forwardI20.02.2002Irewind<< (site-/date-specific performance/palindromic music), 2002 (a compilation of many works by various composers using palindromes)
- PerSonAlia (collective creation with the performers) (theatre/performance), 12 performers/dancers/musicians, 2007;

Selected world premieres and other performances since 2006

(unless indicated otherwise, all performances are full evening length performances)

- Atish-e-Zaban for 6 voices a cappella, World New Music Festival Stuttgart, July 2006
- The Rasalila Project, Ensemble Modern, Venice Biennale, October 2006
- The Rasalila Project, Ensemble Modern, Alte Oper Frankfurt, November 2006
- Stele III for James Tenney, Bozzini Quartet, Montreal 2007 (15')
- Vineland Stelae for trombone and 40 musicians, REDCAT Theatre, Los Angeles November 2007
- Prinzessin Süssusan, opera for and with children, Bonn State Opera, February-April 2008
- Racines Ephemeres for 8 wandering musicians and obbligato conductor, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Vienna Modern Festival, 2008
- The Rasalila Project, Ensemble Modern, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, November 2008
- Transience, Ensemble Fiolutroniq, Montreal, May 2009 (12')