Stepping on the cracks or, how I compose with Indian music in mind

Sandeep Bhagwati is a composer, multi-media artist, festival director and writer on music. Born in 1963 in Bombay, he went to school in Germany and studied conducting and composition in Salzburg, Munich and Paris. He has founded two festivals of contemporary music, 'A *Devantgarde' in Munich (with Moritz Eggert) and 'KlAngRiffe' in Karlsruhe. Bhagwati has won prestigious composition prizes and awards, and was composer-in-residence of the Beethoven Hall Orchestra Bonn. Since 2000 he has been professor of composition at the Music University of Karlsruhe. For the past two years he has led a project with the Ensemble Modern and Indian classical musicians that aims at re-launching compositional and theoretical exchange between Western contemporary and Indian classical music. First results will be presented in a Berlin festival in Autumn 2003. This paper examines Bhagwati's development as a composer and his recourse to aspects of Indian tradition, among other sources.