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#darbarfestival | Irshad Khan plays the surbahar (bass sitar), using its thick, deep-toned timbres to explore Raag Darbari, harking back to when musicians played for kings at the royal court. Learn more about the music: The surbahar’s deep-toned strings can bend upwards over an octave, allowing artists to explore the contours of a raga using only a single fret. Suited to the slow elaborations of dhrupad, it is large, heavy, and notoriously difficult to master. Here it is played by Irshad Khan, who hails from the illustrious Etawah (‘Imdadkhani’) gharana alongside greats such as Shahid Parvez, Vilayat Khan, and Imrat Khan (Irshad’s father). His ancestors gave shape to the modern sitar, customising the design and mastering gayaki ang (singing style). Irshad lives in Canada today, playing and teaching sitar and surbahar around the world. Here he plays a heavily ornamented jhalla from Raag Darbari, described by musicologist Deepak Raja as being “the emperor of ragas, and the raga of emperors”. The w
