5:30 AM to 7:30 AM
Jaswant Thada (outside Mehrangarh Fort)
Full Festival pass/ Day Pass/ RIFF dawns pass Rs. 300/-

Sonam Dorji
“Kheng” Sonam Dorji is a celebrated Bhutanese vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and cultural archivist. A musical journey that began in the remote village of Kaktong, Bhutan, Sonam spent his early teens performing original songs on national radio and composing in his native dialect, earning national recognition. He composed the first-ever nationally broadcast song in Khengpa, which earned him the name “Kheng” Sonam Dorji. A master of the Drangyen (Bhutanese lute), Lim (flute), Dratong (zither), Chiwang (fiddle), Esraj (bowed lute) and many more, he is a pioneering figure in the attempts to document and preserve the musical traditions of Bhutan.

At Jodhpur RIFF, Sonam presents YakVibe – an unusual folk music experience featuring Druk folk musicians. From the high valleys of the Himalayas come four musicians carrying the songs, stories, and spirit of their homeland. Their music is a meeting place of devotion and dynamism, where age-old Bhutanese melodies dance with the colours of contemporary and fusion sounds. Their performances are often lauded not just for their musical excellence, but for the profound spiritual and cultural messages they convey. The quartet features Sobit Singh (Lubang, Bass Guitar, Keyboard, Aungli), Pinaki Chakraborty (Drums, Chabdrung, Shakers), Ganga Ram (Auroo, Guitar, Metobobchu), and Sonam Dorji (vocals, Drangyen, Flute, Dobtsi). Together, they weave traditional tales with modern instrumentation, creating layered, textured performances that are both rooted and globally resonant. This Jodhpur RIFF performance is a rare chance to hear Bhutan live—music that travels lightly across borders, yet arrives heavy with meaning.

Emilia Lajunen
Emilia Lajunen is one of the most captivating voices in Finnish folk today. With her five-string fiddleBiancospino, Kontrabasharpa, and its more recent variation, Nyckelharpa, she conjures a sound that’s both ancient and curiosity-inducing. Her music pulses with trance-like rhythms, unexpected textures, and a raw beauty rooted in tradition but restlessly alive. It is earthy, hypnotic, and full of emotion, drawing listeners into a landscape where the old stories still know how to sing. This is perhaps why she’s been famously described as playing “like a village full of haunted fiddlers.”

A graduate and now longtime teacher at the Sibelius Academy, At Jodhpur RIFF, Emilia shares her own creations and her aural discoveries after exploring how body, movement, and old archive recordings, especially those of lesser-known women fiddlers, can shape a contemporary folk voice.

Limited time slots available, on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.
Sign-up at the RIFF box-office
This first run of en route is for Full Festival Pass holders only.

An India debut, en route in Jodhpur is reimagined as a journey through the majestic Mehrangarh Fort and the adjacent blue city. An immersive, pedestrian-based mobile work, en route creates an experience where the personal and public, the imagined and concrete, converge. Designed for a single audience member at-a-time, this site-conscientious experience crafts a personal connection to place. Courtyards, quiet lanes and old-city streets, snippets of voice, music and fragments of poetry…all inviting us to see the space anew. en route stretches into the now, a journey beyond space and time as you move through a landscape of moments in motion, both discovered and co-created.

Please wear appropriate, weather relevant and comfortable clothing, and good walking shoes.

en route is presented by One Step At A Time Like This and Richard Jordan Productions in collaboration with Jodhpur RIFF and supported by Creative Australia and the Mehrangarh Museum Trust.

India Premiere

9:00 AM to 10:30 AM
Chokelao Mahal
Full Festival pass/ Day Pass

A former athlete, a functional trainer and an award-winning, young, third generation classical dancer, Tarini Tripathi grew up surrounded by Kathak. By popular demand, she returns with her unique legacy to Jodhpur RIFF, to facilitate an invigorating session of dance, introducing us to this beautiful form of movement. Kathak derives much of its beauty from subtle expressions, graceful hand movements and intricate foot movement enhanced by the resounding bells of the ghungroo worn around the dancer’s ankles. Tarini has trained and performed alongside her mother Gauri Sharma Tripathi and grandmother Padma Sharma, both eminent names in Kathak. She has successfully incorporated dancing into her career in fitness training too, advocating the artform as a way of core building and balance training.

This session gives us a taste of Tarini’s simple philosophy, that dance is a way of life in every sense.
Jodhpur RIFF presents rustic dance ‘bootcamps’, facilitated by noted practitioners and trainers. Short, intense, and rigorous, these camps will give participants an experiential insight into the movements and practice of traditional dance forms.
Please Note: This is the one-and-only, stand-alone session of this dance form. Please wear/ bring appropriate and comfortable clothing that allows free movement such as T-shirts, long/ loose shirts or blouses, tights, loose track or harem pants or long skirts.
Do carry your own rehydration and drying material. Be prepared to sweat – it is a boot camp!!

09:45 AM to 5:00 PM
Venues throughout the Mehrangarh Museum
Museum Entry Ticket/ Full Festival pass/ Day Pass

Discover the myriad hues of the traditional dance forms of Rajasthan, reflecting its distinctive root traditions, some popular and some rare, including: Teraah Taali – known for agility and grace, where women move to and produce the reverberating sounds of teraah i.e. thirteen little cymbals or manjira that are fastened to their waist, wrists, elbows, and hands, simultaneously showcasing their skills of movement, balance and concentration; the Kalbeliya, a dance form that evolved when the traditional snake charmers of the state could no longer work with snakes; Khari Dance- revolving around a heartfelt dialogue between a couple, performed with a wooden basket called Khari; Tamak, or bam rasiya is a folk form from Alwar. Popularly performed to celebrate the harvest season, Tamak is characterised by huge Nagadas (Bam) that set the beat and the wooden sticks decorated with flowers and feathers that are used by the dancers; Bakri ka Mashak; the captivating vocals of Young Langa Musicians!

11:00 AM to 1:30 PM
Chokelao Mahal
Full Festival pass/ Day Pass

The Music of Bhutan with Sonam Dorji and other musicians
In conversation with Sonam Dorji, with demonstrations by various artists. Celebrated Bhutanese vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and cultural archivist, Sonam Dorji is a master of the Drangyen (Bhutanese lute), Lim (flute), Dratong (zither), Chiwang (fiddle), Esraj (bowed lute) and many more. He founded the Music of Bhutan Research Centre (MBRC) in 2008. Under his leadership, MBRC has documented over 170 elder musicians, retrieved and remastered 1968 royal court recordings, produced the first book profiling Bhutanese musicians, established archives and music education initiatives. Some of their rare interviews remain among the few surviving firsthand records of Bhutan’s rich musical heritage.
A musical journey that began in the remote village of Kaktong, Bhutan, Sonam spent his early teens performing original songs on national radio and composing in his native dialect, earning national recognition. He composed the first-ever nationally broadcast song in Khengpa, which earned him the name “Kheng” Sonam Dorji.

Sonam founded the Hidden Kingdom World Music Festival, the Music4All Institute, and the Music Research and Archive Center, with the vision to encourage cultural collaborations and revitalise the musical traditions of Bhutan. He has also presented Bhutanese music at festivals and conferences across the world- from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Jaipur Literature Festival, continuing to deepen global understanding of Bhutan’s rich musical heritage.

Jodhpur RIFF’s interactive session series ‘In Residence’ gives the audience a rare opportunity to meet fascinating artists from various root traditions. The sessions encourage audience members to engage and discuss challenges, forms and traditional practice through performances, lecture-demonstrations and facilitated conversations. As more of Rajasthan and India’s rich traditional cultural heritage disappears, Jodhpur RIFF puts the spotlight on some of its remarkable music forms and traditions (some nearing extinction) and opens dialogue to surface and explore how these challenges could be addressed.

6:00 PM onwards (TBC by 4.00 pm on 4th October 2025)
Zenana Courtyard (TBC by 4.00 pm on 4th October 2025)
Full Festival pass/ Day Pass

Inayat: A Duet for Four
Kathak-Rajasthani collaboration with Tarini Tripathi & SAZ Originally commissioned for Jodhpur RIFF 2023, Inayat is a one-of-its-kind collaboration that has continued to grow and evolve long after their success on the festival stage. Mumbai-based exemplary Kathak dancer Tarini Tripathi and young masters of the Langa tradition – SAZ – return to present their unique collaboration, bringing two traditions together in a unique jugalbandi. Almost always performed to Hindustani/ classical instruments such as the tabla, here, Tarini performs her freshly choreographed pieces completely tuned to select, traditional percussion and songs of the Langa community and to Sufi kalaam, rendered by SAZ.

SAZ, incredible musicians of the Langa community, return to the Jodhpur RIFF stage after the tremendous success of their first original single – Sundar Gori, which released earlier this year. They are a young trio committed to the continuity of their tradition, while writing new songs and developing new work in collaboration with artists from across the world. As a former athlete and fitness professional, Tarini sees a synergy between movement and the energy of Sadiq Khan’s masterful dholak, Asin Khan’s powerful vocals and his Sindhi Sarangi (Asin is the recipient of the Aga Khan Music Award 2020-22; Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar 2022), and Zakir Khan’s amazing khartal.

For Tarini, dance is a dynamic extension of one’s being, where we express what we are afraid to do in routine life. Recently bestowed with the ‘Nritya Nipun’ from Nalanda Dance Research Centre, Tarini is recipient of the Best Dancer Award at PECDA 2022. She is also the Co-Director, Principal Dancer, and faculty at Amara Nritya Kala Hansa. Tarini has performed extensively in India and the UK, under the guidance of her mother, acclaimed dancer, and choreographer Gauri Sharma Tripathi, and her grandmother, the incredible Smt. Padma Sharma.

This collaboration is a Jodhpur RIFF commission

Ghewar Khan, Feroze Khan, Darre Khan
Brothers Ghewar Khan Manganiyar and Darre Khan Manganiyar are the undisputed masters of the kamaycha, a string instrument completely unique to the Manganiyar community. A unique Rajasthani string instrument, the kamaycha (a round bodied, fretless string instrument, variant of the Persian kamanche) is rarely heard today, with few musicians able to play the instrument as masterfully as brothers Ghewar and Darre Khan Manganiyar can. Sons and students of the late Padma Shri Sakar Khan ji and custodians of his legacy the brothers present a special showcase of some of the most unusual, significant, and legendary tunes of their traditional repertoire on the rustic, earthy and soulful kamaicha. Tying the trio together is their brother Feroze Khan Manganiyar, arguably the finest dholak player in Rajasthan. The brothers have made a name for themselves around the world, for their exquisite musical artistry, soul-stirring performances, and collaborations with classical and contemporary artistes from India and abroad. They are also teachers of their tradition, sharing the concern and care for the future of the legacy that they’ve inherited.

In its present form, the kamaicha comes with 10-17 strings and is played with a bow. Made of mango wood, its rounded resonator is covered with goat skin. Three or four of its strings are goat intestine called roda and joda while the other 14 strings of steel are ‘jhara’. The kamaicha (also called kamaycha, but completely different from the spiked fiddle from Iran – the kamancheh) bow is prepared from khejari; wood and horse tail hairs or synthetic thread. Small bells (ghungroo) are attached to the bow to produce rhythmic jingle along the notes.

Karolina Cicha and Company
Singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and often one-woman-orchestra, Karolina is known for her masterful vocals with accordion in one hand, keyboard in another and drums by her feet. Equally comfortable in singing in Yiddish and Esperanto (yes!), she is primarily committed to singing and performing tunes and songs of the Tartars – a minority Turkic and Finno-Ugric culture, sometimes understood as part Hungarian/ part Mongolian – and brings a Polish sensibility to her music. At Jodhpur RIFF, the company presents some of their newer compositions, reflecting her current direction of musical exploration: the touchpoints between tradition and modernity as well as the ones between the music of the Podlasie minorities and modern poetry.

Karolina has performed all over the world, including TFF Rudolstadt (Germany),World Music Festival (Slovakia), WOMEX 2015 Official Selection (Hungary), Sibiu International Theatre Festival (Romania) and LaMama Theatre (USA) among many others.

Helder Moutinho
One of the most charismatic and genuine singers of our time, Helder Moutinho dons the many roles of interpreter, composer and poet in the Fado musical tradition. The Portuguese Fado (literally, “fate”), is an artform renowned for its profoundly melancholic character. Helder’s songs often speak of the harsh realities of life, with a bittersweet sense of resignation and hope, invoking a deep sense of saudade or yearning. Over the course of 2 decades, Helder has dedicated himself to the interpretation of traditional fados with their respective founding poems or with new poems (some of his own), and some original compositions. His more recent music, made in collaboration with some of the most talented contemporary poets and composers, have received great praise from critics who believe that many of these new songs will go on to become future traditional fados.

At Jodhpur RIFF, Helder is accompanied by maestro Ricardo Parreira, one of the most renowned contemporary guitarists of the fado world on the Portuguese guitar. Having played with masters like Fernando Alvim, Ricardo’s debut album received great acclaim as one of the most important documents on the great composers of the history of the Portuguese guitar in recent years. Helder and Ricardo will be accompanied by Nelson Aleixo, Francisco Gaspar and Carlos Vales in a set that brings a deep sense of nostalgia and longing to life onstage.

This is Helder’s premiere appearance in India.

The Cool Desert Project
Original moods, bluesy riffs, desert vibes, and off-beat dance grooves… The Cool Desert Project comes back to its home after a gap of two years, bringing together some of the traditional folk favourites and the ease of Jazz in an original, upbeat musical experience. A unique collaboration that brings together Mumbai’s jazz scene and Rajasthani folk traditions, The Cool Desert Project reinvents classics like Kesariya Balam, Hitchki and Soni Ghar, but with a shot of Jazz. At its core, The Cool Desert Project is SAZ, – Sadiq, Asin and Zakir Langa – the rising stars of Rajasthani folk, and Rhys Sebastian (Saxontoast), saxophonist par excellence, leader of Bombay Brass and The Bartender. One of the country’s most sought after Saxophonists, Rhys is a household name in Mumbai’s jazz scene. Trained in the classical piano, clarinet, and saxophone, he is a highly versatile musician juggling fusion, electro swing, jazz, and reinvented Bollywood. Rhys Sebastian’s saxophone with Asin Khan’s exquisite Sindhi sarangi and strong vocals; Sadiq’s mellifluous dholak, the incredible khartal and poignant supporting vocals of Zakir,the hugely talented Amandeep Bhupinder on guitar, this collaboration comes full circle with Merlyn D’Souza on the keyboard. Merlyn is India’s leading woman composer and pianist, and a music director and band leader for numerous projects. The creative force behind Filmytronix, Indiva and Soul Yatra, Merlyn defies categorization and is a true-blue genre-independent leading light of Indian music.

An initiative of Jodhpur RIFF, The Cool Desert Project has been a crowd favourite for over 2 years now and is gradually evolving its remarkable new sound, which we will get a taste of at the festival this year.

This collaboration is a Jodhpur RIFF commission

Jatayu
Hailing from Tamil Nadu, Jatayu is a bold revisiting of the much-revered Carnatic music tradition of South India. Jatayu uses their expert understanding of the rules of Carnatic music to find ways to move around the structural rigidities of mainstream Carnatic music. In their music, the cool, laid-back vibe of jazz meets the raw energy of rock, all woven together with a steady Carnatic base, making three otherwise niche genres accessible to audiences from across the world. Intricate Carnatic ragas are reimagined on an electric guitar, backed by impeccable vocals that can only be mastered from years of formal training. Watching Jatayu live is an exhilarating experience, a ‘musical mathematics’ where centuries-old tradition and contemporary soundscapes collide to create something truly unique and immersive. The lineup consists of Sahib Singh on guitars, Manu Krishnan on drums and vocals, Kashyap Jaishankar on bass, and Shylu Ravindran on Kanjira and Mridangam, Wesley Crispus, and Jarryd Rodrigues.

Around midnight
Salimkot
Full Festival pass/ Day Pass

Rosa Cecelia
London-born and of Chilean-Italian heritage, Rosa Cecilia is a remarkable singer-songwriter who dissolves boundaries between cultures, genres, and personal truths. Raised in a trilingual household, she crafts a rich blend of root traditions – from Latin jazz to neo-soul and disco. Her bold, confessional songwriting explores themes like immigrant identity, wrapped together in melodies laced with soulful hooks. On stage, Rosa is magnetic. Her performances are charged with the emotional depth of artistry that speaks of longing, identity, and joyful reclamation, inviting listeners into a live dreamscape that is impossible to look away from.

This is Rosa’s premiere festival appearance in India.
Jodhpur RIFF introduces the ‘singer-songwriter’ tradition to its line-up this year.

Ars Nova Napoli
After their successful India premier at this very stage in 2023, Jodhpur RIFF brings back the music of the Napolitan streets with the most accomplished young artists of the genre. Performing on the streets of Naples for the longest time before taking to the studios, Ars Nova Napoli has stayed true to their Campanian roots for almost 2 decades now. Their artistic practice is inseparable from the culture of the historic city of Naples, famous for street art and music. Born from a strong belief that artistic expression needs to be free and accessible to the common man, they have performed in countless marketplaces, alleyways, weddings and birthday parties across Italy, as well as music festivals around the world. Truly, no stage is small enough to keep them away. Marcello Squillante, Bruno Belardi, Michelangelo Nusco, Antonino Anastasia, Vincenzo Racioppi, Luca Lanzano and Gianluca Fusco perform a wide variety of music ranging from Sicilian serenades, Neapolitan Classics, Calabrian tarantellas, extending all the way to the Greek rebetiko and Balkan music.

Their constantly evolving music is equal parts festive and joyful, and a testament to the fact that art truly has and will always belong among the people.

Killabeatmaker
Hilder Brando Osorno is a Colombian DJ, singer, and songwriter from Medellín, a pioneering Afro-Colombian voice. His music is built upon his indigenous roots, with the rich rhythms of Colombia and the Valle de Aburrá, blending them with deep basslines and urban beats to create a sound that is deeply rooted, yet never once seeming out of place in clubs across the world. Known for his bold cross-cultural experiments, much of his music also pays homage to the dwindling natural biodiversity of Colombia. At Jodhpur RIFF, Killabeatmaker features an explosive solo DJ set preceded by a live band featuring Guadalupe Giraldo (tambora, gaita, vocals) and Julian Herrera.

Together, they bring a raw, high-energy experience where ancient sounds and modern electronics collide, moving effortlessly between freestyle, percussion, and soaring vocals.

This is Killabeatmaker’s premiere appearance in India