Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Episode 4: Diljeet Bhachu
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Episode 4: Diljeet Bhachu
Diljeet Bhachu in conversation with Kevin Leomo
Episode Notes:
This episode is a conversation between Essential Blends host, Kevin Leomo, and musician, performer, researcher, and activist, Diljeet Bhachu.
Recorded in Glasgow, August 2022. Diljeet and Kevin discuss: exploring sound, relationship with and embodiment of your instrument, connecting with your instrument, physicality of playing; the concept of the whole self, unpacking all the layers in order to fit in and be a different person in different contexts; growing up with cultural difference, layers of awareness, sense of belonging, assimilation culture; parallel histories; layers of awareness, seeing and critically understanding race; enjoying the process of making music, not the product; coloniality and decolonising; positionalities, bringing lived experience into research and PhD work; teaching experiences; vulnerability; spoken word; what makes a creative practice; daytime performance, care.
Diljeet Bio:
Diljeet Bhachu is is an improvising flute player from Glasgow, Scotland. She is currently engaged in a long-term process of unlearning some of the limitations of her training, leaning into imperfection and process. Her improvised playing has been described as “Stunning, transporting to dream realms of music and restfulness…” (Bell Lungs). Diljeet completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. It was during her doctoral research that she gained clarity on how race and colonialism are embedded in her life and her working contexts, following years of informal work and activism to address inequalities.
Diljeet has been writing music on and off since childhood, largely informally before being introduced to ‘composition’ as a concept in high school. She is now engaging with this more pro-actively and formally, most recently writing pieces for the new Trinity College London Graded Exam Flute Syllabus for Exams from 2023 onwards. She has plans to record an improvised EP in 2023, and is also developing a more composed concept album. Diljeet enjoys collaborating, and in particular working with poets both in live and recorded settings. She also performs regularly in Kapil Seshasayee’s live band, and features on both of his albums.
Diljeet has been a trade union activist for over a decade, alongside a portfolio career that has included freelance research, teaching in higher education, and being an arts producer. She co-founded the Scottish-Asian Creative Artists’ Network in 2017, to create space for Scottish artists with Asian heritage whose practices do not explicitly or directly draw on Asian artistic traditions, alongside those who do work within heritage traditions. Shortly after recording this podcast, Diljeet started working for the Musicians’ Union, where she is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer.
View all episodes
By Essential Blends (Adriana Minu & Kevin Leomo)Diljeet Bhachu in conversation with Kevin Leomo
Episode Notes:
This episode is a conversation between Essential Blends host, Kevin Leomo, and musician, performer, researcher, and activist, Diljeet Bhachu.
Recorded in Glasgow, August 2022. Diljeet and Kevin discuss: exploring sound, relationship with and embodiment of your instrument, connecting with your instrument, physicality of playing; the concept of the whole self, unpacking all the layers in order to fit in and be a different person in different contexts; growing up with cultural difference, layers of awareness, sense of belonging, assimilation culture; parallel histories; layers of awareness, seeing and critically understanding race; enjoying the process of making music, not the product; coloniality and decolonising; positionalities, bringing lived experience into research and PhD work; teaching experiences; vulnerability; spoken word; what makes a creative practice; daytime performance, care.
Diljeet Bio:
Diljeet Bhachu is is an improvising flute player from Glasgow, Scotland. She is currently engaged in a long-term process of unlearning some of the limitations of her training, leaning into imperfection and process. Her improvised playing has been described as “Stunning, transporting to dream realms of music and restfulness…” (Bell Lungs). Diljeet completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. It was during her doctoral research that she gained clarity on how race and colonialism are embedded in her life and her working contexts, following years of informal work and activism to address inequalities.
Diljeet has been writing music on and off since childhood, largely informally before being introduced to ‘composition’ as a concept in high school. She is now engaging with this more pro-actively and formally, most recently writing pieces for the new Trinity College London Graded Exam Flute Syllabus for Exams from 2023 onwards. She has plans to record an improvised EP in 2023, and is also developing a more composed concept album. Diljeet enjoys collaborating, and in particular working with poets both in live and recorded settings. She also performs regularly in Kapil Seshasayee’s live band, and features on both of his albums.
Diljeet has been a trade union activist for over a decade, alongside a portfolio career that has included freelance research, teaching in higher education, and being an arts producer. She co-founded the Scottish-Asian Creative Artists’ Network in 2017, to create space for Scottish artists with Asian heritage whose practices do not explicitly or directly draw on Asian artistic traditions, alongside those who do work within heritage traditions. Shortly after recording this podcast, Diljeet started working for the Musicians’ Union, where she is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer.