Who we are

Darbar :: Arts . Culture . Heritage aims to increase the accessibility of south Asian arts, culture and heritage to the UK population.

It has two key aspirations putting on exciting, innovative events from the world of South Asian arts, culture and heritage and helping develop UK musicians into world class performers.

Darbar was set up in 2005 to put on the South Asian Music Festival in Leicester in March 2006. The Indian Classical Music (ICM) Festival, the first of its kind in the UK, had more than 50 musicians, the largest gathering of Indian Classical musicians outside of the subcontinent. It included international maestros and UK-based artists all on the same stage performing more than 30 hours of music, TV-style interviews and workshops for children. Partnerships with organisations then took the artists to audiences around the country.

The inaugural Darbar Festival was a tribute to the late Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee, a resident of Leicester. Gurmit Ji was a talented tabla player, an inspirational teacher, and a deeply spiritual person who made a selfless contribution to the music scene.

Every year since 2006 we have arranged for UK artists to appear at Saptak, one of the most prestigious festivals of Indian Classical Music in India.

Since 2007, we have also organised a pioneering musical retreat – or Shivir - to provide intense, quality training to a small number of talented UK-based artists from some of the leading  maestros from the world of Indian Classical Music. This will not only help the artists themselves by raising the quality of their performances but, in turn, their students.

Within a very short time, Darbar has gained widespread recognition and building relationships with key partners. BBC Radio 3 covered the 2007 Festival as part of a 3-part series on South Asian music broadcast during the summer. Radio 3 are broadcasting two hours of programming from the 2008 Festival.