SACRED MUSIC FESTIVAL

Until this year, Marieke’s most cherished memory of all her travels over many decades in India was attending the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2013. This epic event held every 12 years at the confluence of the holy Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati Rivers sees tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims, devotees and sadhus gather in the world’s largest religious congregation that spans several weeks.
That experience was matched, if not exceeded this February, with the help of an esteemed New York colleague and astounding Indophile, when Marieke finally fulfilled a long time wish and attended the 11th edition of the Sacred Music Festival hosted by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust founded by Babji, Jodhpur’s former maharaja, H. H. Maharaja Gaj Singhji.
Held in one of Rajasthan’s, if not Asia’s most beautiful forts, this was truly the experience of a lifetime and utterly breathtaking.
The three days at Nagaur is private and restricted to two hundred privileged guests, housed in gorgeous, well-appointed royal tents, the same ones we use on our Royal Rajasthan Tour. The fifteen tents we are able to avail our guests are located in an enclosed walled garden leading into the palace courtyards, thus more secluded, quiet and private than the larger main compound. Spaces fill very quickly.

Imagine this –
An exquisite sprawling fort that has been under conservancy for the last 20 years – UNESCO awarded and funded by the Getty and Hamlin Foundations, the Courtauld Institute and Leon Levy Foundation who have brought to life its beautiful murals, paintings, pavilions, Mughal gardens and gurgling fountains – and yours to explore all its marvellous nooks, crannies and passageways at will.
 Evenings lit by many thousand diyas casting their magical glow.
Various stages, pavilions and garden settings as the backdrop for some of the world’s finest musicians, dancers and singers – always enthralling groups from Rajasthan; maybe the plaintive duduk from Armenia, soul-stirring Gregorian chants from France, an angelic Lithuanian voice accompanying herself on a kanklès harp, Gathas from Iran sung by a goddess like opera singer accompanied by a haunting double bass and ney, or an ethereal sarod from Jodhpur.