With a string of gigs cancelled and being compelled to stay home during lockdown, how are touring musicians coping? Lockdown Gharana shows that in collaboration lies their coping mechanism. Produced by Kadambari Raghukumar.

Like most musicians and artists across the world, Wellington-based tabla player Chetan Ramlu had a string of gigs cancelled with the onset of lockdown level 4. Not before long he started looking at how he can keep himself musically engaged and productive - and so he got started with Lockdown Gharana.

"All we can really do is make the most out of this situation and I'm hoping this project will do that" says Chetan.

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Lockdown Gharana had its genesis in the sheer need to make music through the lockdown. A collaboration between south Asian classical and traditional musicians and singers across the world, the project produces and releases a song almost each week on their Facebook page. Each song is recorded collaboratively online through mobile phones by artists across four to five different countries - from Pakistan to Canada to India.

A few weeks before lockdown, Chetan had his friend Sangeet Mishra, a noted Sarangi player, visiting from Mumbai. The Sarangi is a centuries-old bowed and fretless stringed instrument from north India, known for its melancholic sound. It's also said that the Sarangi is one of the rare instruments capable of replicating the subtlest nuances that only human vocal chords are capable of. Sangeet is of the "Banaras Gharana" and the 8th generation of his family that plays the instrument professionally.

In north Indian classical music a factor that distinguishes musicians from one another is the "gharana" - the school, lineage or apprenticeship they come from, which are cities all across the country. Each gharana has a particular and unique nuance to the form of classical Hindustani music they teach.

Earlier in March this year, Sangeet and Chetan played at a sold-out show at the NZ Festival with the ensemble Shades of Shakti. They were then to tour the country with a series of smaller shows. As the coronavirus crisis compelled New Zealand to go into a four week lockdown, most of those gigs ended up cancelled and Sangeet was flown back to Mumbai on one of the last flights before borders closed. What was going to be a successful summer tour in NZ was sadly cut short abruptly for this touring musician and his Kiwi counterpart, Chetan. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details