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A concert programme is a record of choices. Across a season, and then across years, those choices help establish which musical traditions an audience can encounter, which artists it comes to recognise and what a venue understands its purpose to be.
On Gateshead Quays, the partnership between GemArts and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music has been making those choices for more than two decades. Their collaboration began before the venue opened, giving South Asian music a place within the ambitions of a major cultural institution from its earliest years.
This Friday, 23 October, that relationship brings sitar player Ustad Irshad Khan and tabla artist Gurdain Rayatt to the Riverside Ragas series. For Khan, it will be a first performance in the North East: another introduction made possible by a partnership whose significance lies partly in its persistence.
Khan is a master of the Imdadkhani gharana, a musical lineage associated with an approach that draws the sitar towards the expressive qualities of the human voice. The instrument’s capacity to sustain and bend a phrase makes that relationship between singing and playing especially compelling. Alongside him, Rayatt brings the rhythmic precision and responsiveness on which the conversation between sitar and tabla depends.
The immediate reason to attend is the music. Yet the opportunity to hear it in Gateshead also has a history: people programming, building relationships and returning to the work of bringing artists and audiences together.
GemArts director Vikas Kumar grew up in Bensham. The organisation’s account of its beginnings describes a response to the limited visibility of South Asian culture within major venues, and a development from a volunteer initiative into an established arts organisation.
That local origin is key. It places the work within the North East’s own cultural ambitions and communities. The international artists who arrive here become part of a programme shaped by people with a stake in the place.
Over the partnership’s lifetime, audiences have encountered musicians including Zakir Hussain, Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Anoushka Shankar. Its breadth also encompasses British Asian jazz, collaborations with Royal Northern Sinfonia and opportunities for artists including Roopa Panesar, Jasdeep Singh Degun and Eeshar Singh.
The range deserves attention. “South Asian arts” describes a vast field of traditions, practices and contemporary invention. Programming across that field gives audiences opportunities to hear distinctions, follow individual musicians and develop interests beyond a first encounter.
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There is a useful connection here with Liverpool.
In our recent feature, The Sound of Possibility, we considered Milap’s work ahead of Roopa Panesar’s November performance with tabla artist Kousic Sen. Panesar has also appeared through Riverside Ragas: a concrete connection between programmes on opposite sides of the North.
These are distinct organisations, rooted in different places. Together, their activity helps us see a fuller northern musical landscape - one in which Indian classical music has recurring platforms, established listeners and opportunities for discovery.
Continuity changes the invitation. Someone can attend a first concert, recognise an artist’s name in a later programme, bring a friend and gradually become a regular listener. A venue can deepen its knowledge of the work it presents. Relationships have time to develop.
GemArts’ wider activity extends into neighbourhood spaces, workshops and festivals across Gateshead and Newcastle. Its Masala Festival reached its tenth anniversary year in 2026, while its Holi celebrations with BALTIC bring another form of participation to the quayside.
The concert hall and the community programme offer different experiences, each with its own artistic and social value. Their coexistence gives a cultural organisation more ways to build relationships with the people around it.
Anniversaries provide a moment to recognise that work. They also invite a practical question about its future: will the relationships, expertise and opportunities built over twenty years receive the support to continue?
For audiences this week, the invitation is more immediate. Two musicians will take the stage in Gateshead, bringing their knowledge, judgement and responsiveness to an evening whose details will emerge through performance.
Behind that encounter stands a long partnership. Its achievement can be heard in the music - and in the fact that another audience has the opportunity to listen.
Riverside Ragas: Ustad Irshad Khan & Gurdain Rayatt takes place at The Glasshouse, Gateshead, on Friday 23 October 2026 at 8pm.
Adult tickets are £28.10; tickets for those aged 16 and under are £16.90. Family tickets and a limited £10 offer for ages 18–30 are also listed.
Concert information and booking
Read our companion piece: The Sound of Possibility: Roopa Panesar Returns to Liverpool.
