South Asian Heritage event

Please note this event is only for St Mary’s staff and students

To mark South Asian Heritage Month, St Mary's University will be hosting an event where colleagues from across the University will come together to share and celebrate South Asian history, culture, and heritage.

All staff and students are welcome to attend.

The event will feature:

• A screening of Empire State of Mind followed by a panel discussion by staff from the REC Self-Assessment Team and BAME Network
• Live Indian classical music by Santoor Maestro Ustad Kiranpal Singh and Divyanand Caird who specialises in performance of Saraswati Vina
• A selection of delicious food from across South Asia.

Kiranpal Singh Deoora is one of a select few performers of Indian classical music on the Santoor. Kiranpal Singh is UK’s leading Santoor Maestro, having learnt his music art in the traditional way in UK (tabla and vocal) and Bombay, India (Santoor).

His Holiness Satguru Jagjit Singh Maharaj, the then spiritual Head of Namdhari Sikhs, heard Kiranpal’s Tabla solo performance in London, and with His Holiness ‘s divine blessings Kiranpal’s destiny was written to study Santoor with the pioneer of Indian Santoor-Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma. He forsook his studies when given the opportunity and has not looked back since.

Born in Tanazania, Kiranpal now lives in London. He plays regular concerts all over the globe. He has played for HRH Prince Phillip at Buckingham Palace, as well as South Bank Halls numerous times.

He has played at Spittalfields Festival and London Mela as well as other prestigious festivals.

His mastery of the advanced techniques of the Santoor has allowed him to develop a wide repertoire which includes audiences, critics and many well known artists.

Kiranpal reveals great gifts of imagination in his performance by beautifully blending creative flair and spontaneous imagination. 

Divyanand Caird is a London-based Indian classical musician of the karnatak (carnatic) music genre specialising in performance and teaching the Saraswati Vina (the ancient South Indian Lute).

He has an Indo-Scottish heritage and is one of the prime disciples of Vina maestro Dr. Karaikudi S. Subramanian, a ninth-generation musician from the illustrious Karaikudi Vina tradition and founder of Brhaddhvani.

In 2017, Divyanand founded Brhaddhvani Global Centre for Music, a registered charity in the UK to propagate the Karaikudi Vina Tradition and Dr. Subramanian’s pioneering teaching methodology COMET (Correlated Objective Music Education and Training) to enable people from all backgrounds and walks of life to learn music from a global context.  

He has been a resident artist since 2015 at PRSSV Institute of Performing Arts and Heritage, one of UK’s premier institutions propagating World Music and Dance, and is part of their board of examinations. He has been active in performing, teaching, and collaborating with musicians and educators across the UK.