PNN
New Delhi [India], October 16: Ruhbaru, a new premium cultural IP created to bring audiences closer to distinctive artists, music and live experiences, will make its debut with Chapter One: The Orchestral Qawwali Project (OQP) this December. Produced by BAE (Before Anyone Else), the experience-first live entertainment platform from ABP Network, and creatively produced by Cultural (Mis)fits, the four-city India tour will bring internationally acclaimed composer Rushil Ranjan and vocalist Abi Sampa home for the first time. India is about to experience qawwali in a way it has never heard before.
Dates:
- 5 December 2026 – Yashobhoomi, Delhi
- 6 December 2026 – Terraform Arena, Bengaluru
- 12 December 2026 – Ramoji Film City
- 13 December 2026 – JW Marriott Sahar, Mumbai
Founded in 2020, The Orchestral Qawwali Project began with a simple but ambitious question: what happens when the spiritual intensity and improvisational freedom of qawwali are given the scale and architecture of an orchestra? The answer has become a distinctive musical language of its own, bringing together qawwali, Western classical, South Asian and Indian classical traditions, alongside classical dance and immersive live performance.
Over the past few years, OQP has travelled from intimate spaces to some of the world’s most respected stages, with sold-out performances at the Royal Albert Hall, Roundhouse, Barbican and Symphony Hall Birmingham. Following their 2024 performance at the Royal Albert Hall, Ranjan and Sampa were named Associate Artists of the institution. Their reimagining of the 700-year-old qawwali Man Kunto Maula has also reached several million viewers online.
Now, the project comes to India.
For Ruhbaru, OQP is more than a first concert. It is the beginning of a larger cultural proposition. Conceived as an anthology, Ruhbaru will remain the constant while each chapter introduces a different artist, sound or tradition. OQP is the first expression of this vision, with future chapters set to explore new artists, sounds and cultural traditions, but always through the same Ruhbaru promise: Sounds that speak to your Ruh/Soul
“Qawwali has always been more than music; it is poetry, devotion and surrender, brought to life through a shared experience. With the Orchestral Qawwali Project, we wanted to honour its timeless essence while giving it a larger, symphonic canvas, bringing international orchestral artists and qawwals together on Indian stages for the first time. At BAE, we’re always looking to create live experiences that feel fresh, meaningful and memorable. This is one such experience, where the soul of qawwali meets the scale of an orchestra, creating something audiences can truly feel.
For Cultural (Mis)fits, the IP Conceivers and the creative producers of Ruhbaru and India’s representatives for OQP, the project marks the first expression of a larger vision for cultural experiences in India.” – Rajat Uppal, Chief Operating Officer – BAE
Speaking about the initiative and the vision behind the new cultural IP, Ishita Chauhan, Founder & CEO, Cultural (Mis)fits, says, “India doesn’t have a shortage of extraordinary music. It has a discovery problem. Too often, artists are defined by the language they sing in, the genre they belong to or the geography they come from, and audiences end up hearing only what is already within their cultural orbit. Ruhbaru is designed to break that pattern; it’s for anyone who feels deeply, regardless of language or musical vocabulary. Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and regional languages; contemporary folk, Sufi, qawwali, devotional, classical, acoustic, indie and cross-genre fusion the common thread is not going to be genre, but the ability to move people. We want to build a platform where exceptional artists can find audiences beyond their obvious ones, and audiences can discover music beyond the boundaries they have inherited. The Orchestral Qawwali Project is our first chapter because it embodies that belief: it takes a deeply rooted musical tradition and allows it to travel across forms, geographies and generations without losing its soul. Bringing it to India is not simply about bringing home a concert, but about introducing audiences to a way of experiencing culture that we hope Ruhbaru will continue to build, chapter after chapter.”
At the heart of this experience are two artists whose collaboration has quietly been reshaping the possibilities of devotional music on the global stage.
Rushil Ranjan is an award-winning composer and producer whose work brings the orchestral and choral traditions of the West into conversation with the devotional and classical music of South Asia. A self-taught composer, he writes across concert music, award-winning dance productions and BAFTA-nominated television and film projects, with work spanning the Edinburgh International Festival, Southbank Centre, Netflix, ITV and Film4. He is an Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s first Collaborative Artist and Artistic Partner of Manchester Camerata. As OQP’s co-founder and composer, Ranjan has created a distinctive orchestral world that brings new audiences into concert halls and opens symphonic music to different traditions and communities. His collaboration with A. R. Rahman culminated in a new co-written work performed at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2026 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Voices. Other recent highlights include the world premiere of Ruhaniyat at the Manchester International Festival in 2025. Across these projects, his work combines compositional ambition with a direct emotional language, creating music that is expansive in scale and intimate in its connection with audiences.
Abi Sampa is a qawwal, veena virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist whose extraordinary voice is central to OQP’s identity and emotional power. An Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall and co-founder of the project, she brings together the precision of her South Asian classical musicianship with the freedom, intensity and spiritual conviction of qawwali. Her singing moves between delicate, intimate expression and soaring improvisation, giving the project its compelling human centre. The first singer of an Asian classical tradition to appear on The Voice UK, Sampa has gone on to bring devotional music to audiences at some of the UK’s most celebrated concert halls. Her performances with OQP, from the Roundhouse and Barbican to sold-out appearances at the Royal Albert Hall, place her at the forefront of the project’s reimagining of qawwali for the contemporary stage. Both a commanding soloist and a deeply responsive collaborator, she shapes the music through her phrasing, improvisation and interplay with the orchestra. In her voice, the centuries-old poetry of qawwali becomes immediate and personal, drawing listeners into its emotional world across languages and generations.
Together, Ranjan and Sampa have developed an artistic partnership that places a centuries-old devotional tradition in conversation with contemporary orchestral composition, without reducing either to a mere fusion of genres. That distinction is central to OQP. This is not simply qawwali meets orchestra. It is an attempt to create a new musical language : one that allows the spiritual rapture of qawwali to exist within an expansive contemporary orchestral world. The project’s music continues to evolve, with its latest iteration bringing together Ranjan’s orchestral writing, Sampa’s soaring improvisational vocals and Western classical choral music.
The India Tour
After years of building this musical world for audiences across the UK and internationally, Ranjan and Sampa will finally bring it to India across four venues in December 2026:
- 5 December 2026 – Yashobhoomi, Delhi
- 6 December 2026 – Terraform Arena, Bengaluru
- 12 December 2026 – Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad
- 13 December 2026 – JW Marriott Sahar, Mumbai
Ruhbaru is built on a simple belief: great music should not be limited by language, genre or geography. It is for people who feel deeply, and for artists whose work deserves to travel further. From Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and regional languages to contemporary folk, Sufi, qawwali, devotional, classical, acoustic, indie and cross-genre fusion, each chapter will create a space for distinctive sounds to find new audiences and for audiences to discover music beyond what they already know. OQP is the first chapter. What comes next will be shaped by other artists, other sounds and other traditions, but always through the same Ruhbaru promise: sounds that speak to your soul.
Tickets available on: District
About Ruhbaru
Ruhbaru is a premium, artist-agnostic cultural IP created to bring thoughtfully curated live cultural experiences to India. Built as an anthology, the platform remains constant while each chapter introduces a different artist, sound or cultural tradition. Beginning with The Orchestral Qawwali Project, Ruhbaru will continue to present new artists and traditions through future chapters, each with its own distinct cultural and creative expression.
About The Orchestral Qawwali Project
Founded in 2020 by composer Rushil Ranjan and vocalist Abi Sampa, The Orchestral Qawwali Project reframes the spiritual rapture of qawwali through full orchestral scores, drawing on Western classical, South Asian and Indian classical traditions alongside classical dance.
The project has performed at sold-out venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Roundhouse, Barbican and Symphony Hall Birmingham, and Ranjan and Sampa were named Royal Albert Hall Associate Artists following their 2024 performance.
About BAE (Before Anyone Else)
BAE (Before Anyone Else) is an experience-first live entertainment and events platform from ABP Network, creating and presenting live experiences for contemporary audiences.
About Cultural (Mis)Fits
Cultural (Mis)fits is building the cultural infrastructure that will connect the counter-mainstream creative economy, its artists, ideas, communities and cultural IP with the audiences, brands, platforms and global networks that can help it move further. Its five verticals: live experiences and cultural IP, artist management, digital media, film and content studio, and merchandise are built to take culture from discovery to experience to scale. As the creative producers of Ruhbaru and India’s representatives for The Orchestral Qawwali Project, CMF brings OQP to India as the first chapter of Ruhbaru, a platform built on a simple belief: culture gets richer when more voices get the space, scale and audience to travel.
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