music · Sep 30, 2026 · DAILY TRANSMISSION
Brooklyn’s 24-Hour Raga Festival Is Letting Dawn Book the Bands
Ragas Live turns a Red Hook weekend into a clock-shaped listening party, where midnight, sunrise, and late afternoon each get their own sound.
At 6:15 a.m., the guitar gets weird
Most festivals save their big feelings for prime time. Ragas Live puts Gabriel Akhmad Marin’s dutar and fretless-guitar set at 6:15 a.m. That is a bold hour to ask people to be emotionally available, especially before coffee.
On October 17–18, Pioneer Works in Red Hook will host the 15th annual Ragas Live Festival. It begins at 7 p.m. Saturday and runs through 7 p.m. Sunday. More than 50 musicians will fill a continuous 24-hour program.
The point is not to prove who can stay awake longest. The point is to hear the clock differently. Midnight, dawn, breakfast, and late afternoon each become part of the musical plan.
The old time wheel is driving
Much of the Hindustani program follows raga samay, a traditional system connecting particular ragas with particular times of day. A raga is a musical mode, with its own melodic shape and mood. Samay cakra, or “time wheel,” is the larger convention that pairs raga and hour.
That idea can sound like a music-history fact trapped in a textbook. Ragas Live makes it physical. You can be in a room at first light, hearing strings and percussion that were placed there on purpose.
The schedule moves like a strange, generous city clock. It begins in the evening with South Indian classical music, including violinist Lalgudi G.J.R. Krishnan and vocalist Sanhita Nandi. At 10:20 p.m., Zahra AlZubaidi, Zafer Tawil, Mohamed Salah, Sami Abu Shumays, and the Umm Kulthum Workshop perform a tribute to Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum.
Midnight belongs to Gnawa
At midnight, Saha Gnawa takes over. Led by Maâlem Hassan Ben Jaafar, the group presents North African Sufi trance music with New York jazz musicians Daniel Freedman, Jason Lindner, and Gilad Hekselman.
Then comes the beautiful overnight sprawl: Afghan rubab and tabla, santoor and tabla, sarangi and ghatam, dutar and guitar, then sarod and tabla. A Carnatic flute set arrives at 9:30 Sunday morning. Carnatic music is the classical music tradition of South India.
This is not a blender labeled “world music.” The festival is grounded in South Asian raga practice, while bringing distinct traditions into the same long listening span. Gnawa, Egyptian song, Qawwali, Malian kora music, and Carnatic music keep their own names and histories. Thank god for that.
A radio show learned to grow legs
Ragas Live started in 2012 as an in-studio WKCR broadcast at Columbia University. Organized by David Ellenbogen and Ahmet Ali Arslan, it preempted regular programming for a 24-hour run. The radio format was already asking listeners to commit to time, not just a hit song.
That broadcast DNA is still buzzing. This year’s festival will stream on Pioneer Works’ YouTube channel, air on WKCR 89.9 FM, and later become a podcast through NYC Radio Live. Someone can hear the dawn arc from another place, while somebody else wanders back into Pioneer Works with a re-entry wristband.
Earlier editions have reached performers and listeners far beyond New York. In 2020, the festival assembled performances from Rajasthan, Venezuela, Japan, San Francisco, Cape Town, and New York. Its real stage has always been bigger than one room.
Stay for the closing prayer with a pulse
Sunday afternoon brings South African guitarist Derek Gripper’s tribute to Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté. After that come sitar player Indrajit Banerjee and tabla player Nitin Mitta. At 5:30 p.m., Pakistani Qawwali artists Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad Qawwal close the marathon.
There will be food in the Pioneer Works garden, but the main meal is duration. A normal festival makes you choose between stages and feel bad about it. Ragas Live hands you one ticket, lets you leave and return, and says: come back when the day has changed.
Maybe you arrive for midnight trance music. Maybe you return when the sky turns pale. Either way, dawn has already booked the band.
SOURCES FROM THIS TRANSMISSION
Ragas Live Festival ↗Ragas Live Festival | WKCR 89.9FM NY ↗Rāgs Around the Clock: A Handbook for North Indian Classical Music, with Online Recordings in the Khayāl Style ↗