Virtuosos in their own right, musician duo Sourendro and Soumyojit have carved a prominent place in the music landscape of India with their unique brand of curated compositions. On the brink of completing two decades of making music together, they are excited to present Twenty Together — Live in Concert, in association with t2, an evening of music featuring the two to be held on December 17 in the courtyard of the Indian Museum. A t2oS chat with pianist Sourendro Mullick and vocalist Soumyojit Das on their journey of 20 years as they prepare to celebrate this memorable milestone.

How did you two meet? Was the connection instantaneous?

Soumyojit: As co-applicants to study in the undergraduate courses in St. Xavier’s College’s music quota, we met each other first on the day that we had to appear for a skill test of our music abilities. Luckily, both of us were selected. We realised while rehearsing for the college’s freshers’ welcome programme that we understood each other musically and could make a good team together. Soon, we became recognised as music talents.

Sourendro: So much so that as complete newcomers, the then principal of the college, Father Mathew, entrusted us with the responsibility of presenting a piece together for a programme to be attended by the then President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and distinguished delegates of the World Jesuit Committee.

Soumyojit: It was a great feeling when Kalam Sahab recognised us specially for our talents. This enhanced and cemented our reputation as performers.

Can you recall an important experience that helped you get a foothold as professional musicians?

Soumyojit: An opportunity to visit Germany for three months to showcase our music came when we were on the verge of graduating. In fact, I had to skip my college leaving examinations as our dates of travel were clashing. Father Mathew was like a guiding star, encouraging us to take this huge step.

Sourendro: This visit exposed us to great Western performers and we learnt how they produced music. So two amateur musicians from Calcutta were suddenly in the company of jazz exponents, music professors. Our training in Indian classical music was greatly appreciated by them, so much so that we found ourselves lecturing great musicians there on our ragas. We learnt also how much Indian music is valued globally. We saw and learnt how professional musicians recorded their music, something about which we had zero idea.

Soumyojit: We also learnt in detail about how to organise a concert, how to manage the backstage, how rehearsals are conducted, scoresheets exchanged and so on. We also learnt what professionalism in music is all about. We got the chance to compose a lot of songs during the time and performed them during programmes organised every weekend for those three months. Our experiences during this trip also made us know the importance of discipline and punctuality. We also made a great many friends on this tour, who we later realised were all internationally well-known musicians. So life has thrown us such surprises and splendid opportunities every now and then and all of them have helped us grow as musicians.

Was the experience in Germany also responsible for igniting your interest in fusion music?

Sourendro: I believe music was driving us together for a longer journey and feeding us information which we were able to absorb and then recreate something new and interesting. That’s how we decided to try out the genre of experimental music. We take something from here and there, take something of our own, and then palate it to an audience. We also saw that the way we were presenting our music, wearing our costumes or the new soundscape we were presenting at that point of time, gained a good amount of audience who were our followers and supporters and who said they liked the kind of sound we created.

Soumyojit: The fact that the non-Indian audience also praised our music gave us more confidence. We started trying to decode and uncover similarities between a Western classical composition and what we thought was its Indian counterpart.

Sourendro: So the fusion journey has been very eventual. I think it fell into place as we conducted our experiments in music. The Germany trip was definitely a very big influence.

Soumyojit: That trip not only shaped our music and ideas, but also our lifestyle and our way of looking at nature and humanity.

You have built a vast collection of original compositions too…

Sourendro: Yes, people love us for our original music. Though they like listening to our interpretations of others’ compositions; even today, after 20 years of performing globally, the audience requests to listen to our original compositions when we are invited to perform in a place like USA. In fact, now we want to focus more on our original music.

Soumyojit: We have 50 original compositions, some of which have not yet been launched. Twenty Togther will celebrate only original music by Sourendra-Soumyojit. It also marks 20 years since You & I, our first concert together in the city.

After returning from the Germany trip, we made quite a bit of new music, bearing influences of our learning from ideas of foreign musicians and incorporating them with our knowledge and understanding of Indian music. They all turned out to be good compositions and so we thought of cutting an album. How we did that is a story by itself as we knew no and had no idea about album promotion or marketing.

You have done some really fantastic collaborations too over the years. Name a few favourites.

Soumyojit: So while doing these original songs, we composed a track called Ek roothi si khamoshi. We thought that the song should be a duet, and I instantly thought of Kavita Krishnamurthy because she had that innocence and simplicity in her voice that would be just perfect for this song. As a huge fan, I had her email ID, to which we sent the scratch recording. We were delighted to receive a response that she liked it very much and then we were called to Mumbai for the recording. The song remains one of hers and our favourites.

Our first album, Back to the Future (2009), was also a collab featuring very well-known Indian and Western musicians. Tagore and We (2011) was a coming together of four people — Srabani Sen and German pop singer Stefan Stoppok, besides the two of us. That album was unique and became extremely popular for its fresh sound. It was a bestseller and a chart-topper that year for 20 consecutive weeks.

Soumyojit: Our collaboration of Tagore’s Chirosakha hey with Sufi singer Salim Chishtee not only gave a different dimension to Tagore’s song, but made Gulzar sahaab reach out to us as he loved the rendition. Another important milestone collab is Jaya He, an album by various artistes to celebrate 150 years of Tagore.

Tell us something about your World Music Day concerts in Calcutta that have gained worldwide popularity.

Soumyojit: Yes they are our way of giving back to the city which has given us so much. It has grown over the years and next year will be our 15th edition. Each year we try to reach out to different artistes and come up with different ideas. Now it has reached out beyond Bengal to the world. We were fortunate that in 2019 Asha Bhosle sang a song composed by us on the World Music Day stage.

Sourendra: Harsh Neotia was present at our first World Music Day concert at GD Birla Sabhagar and was fascinated with all the different forms of music. He was the one who suggested the idea of Jaya He to us.