K. Sridhar and Sanjay playing early morning ragas

Some time ago I bought a ticket to attend the performance of ‘Early Morning Ragas’ which would open the Stroud Sacred Music Festival 2025. It began at 7-45am in St Laurence church, in the centre of town, the venue for the two days of musical performances. I offered to take photos of our friend Sridhar who is a highly regarded sarod player as it is rare for him to perform in Britain. He does perform in concert in many countries and most often in the USA.

Sridhar’s wife Camilla is very involved in the plans to regenerate the church, which has become a centre for multi-faith use under the guidance of the Rev. Simon Howell, and the Stroud Centre for Peace & the Arts (SCPA). A  series of bids for funding the renewal of the church's physical structure are being prepared, particularly the National Lottery Fund. 

I returned home as at the last minute I was asked to photograph several of the later events today, between 3-30 and 8-30pm, and I needed to  prepare. It turned out really well and all the events were interesting. This link describes the underlying basis and the background to this 10th Anniversary of  Stroud Sacred Music Festival. The nearly unique surround sound system, provided by local business 'd&b Soundscape' which provided ultra high quality audio even when the surround sound wasn't a key element.

I've got a bit of work still to distribute the images to various performers and to the church organisers for them to use in their illustration of the role of this fine church in the wider community. I was intrigued when I took a photo of Rev. Simon Howell and saw he was wearing a dark t-shirt with an illustration on the front of the cover of The Velvet Underground's third album, which is one of my favourites.

Do have a look at K. Sridhar's website which has some examples of his recorded music, as well as amazing biography. He started training on the sarod at the age of five!