Name: Pratibha Singh Baghel

Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Singer, actress
Current release: Pratibha Singh Baghel's Ghazals & Thumris From The Musical Heart of Budapest is out via Sufiscore. 
Recommendations: I want to suggest two things. First is an album called Inheritance that was released on Sufiscore last year. We recorded it for the love of our culture, our tradition, our heritage. We did four traditional Indian classical thumris that were reimagined by Deepak Pandit. This album is really, really close to my heart so I suggest to everyone that if they have time and if they really love traditional music they must not miss it!  
The other thing I want to suggest is a little different than the music. There is a poetry book called Rashmirathi by Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. I really like this Hindi poetry book, so if people really love Indian art or Indian cultural poetry then they must read this book.

If you enjoyed this interview with Pratibha Singh Baghel and would like to stay up to date with her music and work, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started music when I was very young, from childhood. I started singing when I was three but I started singing professionally when I was fourteen. My father inspired me in my childhood because he used to sing ghazals a lot and I think that is why I used to like listening to this music on the internet and I started learning.

There are many many people who inspired me such as Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali and one of the most amazing female Indian singers of all time, the great Lata Mangeshkar.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

When I listen to music, it’s like a mediation for me, I go into a different trance. Any problem or anything is not there when I am into music whether I listening to music or singing.

I think music is medicine or meditation for me.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Music has definitely helped me to evolve as a person, to become a better human. As I become a better artist, I grow every day.

There are different times and different zones where a person can be. Music always keeps me sane, gives me all the courage, all the strength to fight it out - whatever the scenario is.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

If I talk about my sense of identity, I think I would have been nothing if I was not a musician. If I didn’t sing, I would be a hopeless girl sitting at home. I wouldn’t have done anything else if I didn’t do music. So music is my identity for my life, the first identity that I can say.

Also, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music which inspire me a lot as a musician. I listen to a lot of western musicians such as Celine Dion, Adele, Charlie Puth and Bruno Mars. They all inspire me to make my music boundaryless. It definitely makes me more creative and also makes my music more creative, so that I can showcase it to the world.  

As a listener or as a creative person I listen to a lot of different kinds of music - people see me only doing similar kind of stuff, but there are so many things which I draw inspiration from.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

My key approach to music is very simple and very strong. I do not want to make music with limits. I want to break all the limits, I want to break all the boundaries, I want to not limit my music, I want to share my music with the world. That is the key, that is my approach to music.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I never want to limit my music or get stuck in only one type of music. I love my traditional music and I am already doing that but that does not make me stop trying something new. I am always very enthusiastic about trying new things in music.

I love Western music also and I have collaborated with Budapest Symphony Orchestra for a symphony of ghazals which Deepak Pandit ji has arranged and produced. I always try to keep the authenticity intact but fuse it with either Western music or folk music.

I think my music can never be limited and I never want to make it limited. I want the whole world to experience my music and I am absolutely up for music for the future and at the same time I love my traditional music.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

For now I only play two kinds of instruments, tanpura and harmonium, a little. I started playing tanpura since I started learning in my childhood. I’d love to learn piano, hopefully soon I’ll start that.

These instruments I play are only to support to make my music stronger.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

My day when I’m in Mumbai is different, from a day when I'm travelling. I travel a lot for concerts, for shows. But when I’m in Mumbai I usually have recordings so I get up and I practice a little and then I go to studios, I sing and I record things and that’s all.

When I am in Mumbai I only want to do one thing and that is being in a studio. So that is what I do, the entire day.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

There are many, many times and there are many projects which are extremely dear to me. But if I talk about only a few, then there was one album which happened with Sufiscore in 2021 called Bole Naina (Silences Speak) composed and musically produced by Deepak Pandit with ghazals by Gulzar and tabla playing by the incredible Zakir Hussain.



This project really moved me – from the beginning, it had a special kind of energy. We can never thank Sufiscore enough for giving us the liberty to create our own kind of music. They supported us with all their heart and it was released on a very large scale. That is always going to be a very special project for me.

Also, recently I performed live with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a surreal feeling because this was my first world premiere of Symphony of Love at the Cape Town Artscape Opera House. Performing here was really special and an emotional moment for me.



Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

As an artist, I think working solo and in a group both matter a lot. When you make music or when you listen to music alone, I think it channels your inner musical sense and you create the things that you are deeply into.

But when you do it as part of a group, when you have a few musicians around you and when you make it a group activity I think it becomes more interesting. It has so many beautiful ideas because one mind can give you a special thing but different minds can give you even more different suggestions. It can add new angles to your music it can creatively go very vast.

So I think both have their own colours and both have their own beauties. I love both when it comes to creativity.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I think people see music as meditation or medication. I have seen so many people in the society, in my life, who rely on music to relax their mind, to calm down and to see the world in a different way. I think music connects you to the highest energy so I think music is extremely important and very integral part of anyone’s life. A few people take it as entertainment, a few people take it as meditation, a few people take it as fun. But music definitely is there in society.

As an artist I take the responsibility to make people feel better through my music. If my music can give them peace and if my music can give them happiness, I’ll be very happy. So I’ll continue to serve my music and to present my music for the peoples’ peace and happiness.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

For me music is a way of communication and a way of connection. It helps me express my feelings, my emotions better. If there is no music I really cannot express things in a better way.

It definitely helps in various situations about life: when I am feeling low I listen to music it makes me feel so much better. When I am charged up, I listen to music, it motivates me so I think it happens with a lot of people. When I speak to my friends, family or the people in the society, they all say that ...

The biggest example that I can give is that during lockdown, the Covid lockdown, I used to receive so many messages saying that - you know your music is making us sail through it. So I think that the power of music is that you can connect and sail through it whatever the emotion or whatever the situation is.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Honestly, I don’t connect music to science. For me music is all about heart and emotions and the purest energies of nature. So it’s a soul food, I do not really connect it to science.  

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

As I’ve always said, music is a way of communication, is a way of expression in my life. I think I connect to my deepest emotions while I am into music and I have experienced it so many times.

Music is the only language to be able to express my deepest emotions.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

For this I have a very small but very meaningful answer. I see music as the most divine energy because it can connect you to the greatest energies, it can make you feel the deepest emotions.

So I call it the food for soul.