Leeds will host ten year celebration of RadhaRaman folk festival in three day virtual event

A ten year celebration of a folk festival will take place in Leeds this coming weekend.
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The three-day festival, RadhaRaman folk festival, will feature performers from all across the world and already has followers from the UK and Europe.

From November 27, 28 and 29 there will be more than 12 hours everyday of music, dance, poetry and talk and will be streamed live via the RadhaRaman Festival facebook page and YouTube.

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The inauguration will feature panel discussion by Leeds MPs Fabian Hamilton, Richard Burgon and Alex Sobel as well as the former governor of Cayman Island Anwar Chowdhury. The planning minister of Bangladesh M A Mannan, the minister of state for cultural affairs K M Khalid, the member of Bangladesh parliament Muhibur Rahman will also join.

Performances from a previous festival.Performances from a previous festival.
Performances from a previous festival.

The festival is bringing performers from different traditions that include the Bhajan king Anup Jalota, Indian classical music, a Bengali experimental music composer, Tagore singers, dancers and actors, Scottish, Lebanese-Canadian-Greek, Moroccan and Persian performers.

Also on the bill are UK based artists Gouri Chowdhury, Sanjoy Dey, Sumana Basu, Sufi Amir Muhammed, Amith Dey, Sohel Ahmed, Sonia Sultana, Laboni Barua, Indrani Ghosh Sen, Jessy Barua, Poppy Shahnaz, Jahangir Rana, Arundhati Mukherjee as well as some child prodigies Tanisha Chowdhury and Anvita Gupta.

Supported by one of the leading Indian classical music promoters in the UK, Saudha Society of poetry and music, as well as Leeds City Council, the Gronthee, the Nehru Centre, SAA UK, Sangeet Foundation, the festival will run from 1pm each day.

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T M Ahmed Kaysher, one of the founders and the curator of the festival, said: “The aim of the festival is to promote the joy and happiness of the life through folk music and dance. This has been promoting the lyrical landscapes of the North by hosting sessions of music, dance and networking in the middle of the forest like Otley Chevin, by the Scammonden Lake along with other formal art and community venues.

Parvathy-Baul will feature in the line up.Parvathy-Baul will feature in the line up.
Parvathy-Baul will feature in the line up.

"RadhaRaman Festival drew the attention of the audiences from different cities of the UK because of its unique nature of hosting sessions all day and all night. Audience ends up with a memorable experience of witnessing music and dance performances happening all day all night, sometime at the deeper forest while barbecuing, sometime at the bank of the lake while networking with people from one tradition to another, one corner to another. Audience goes home with tears after three days of human-bonding that arts and music create in the lap of lyrical nature of the North."

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