Ramayana performance at V&A Museum, London
In November 2025, Third Culture Collective performed at the annual Gala of Pratham UK, a charity supporting education and empowerment programmes for children, young people and women across India.
Held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Gala brought together supporters, partners and artists for an evening celebrating Pratham’s work. Hosted by comedian and impressionist Rory Bremner, the evening featured special guests, performances, a pledge drive and silent auction, ultimately raising more than £450,000 for Pratham’s programmes.
Pratham UK commissioned Kavi to compose a new 30-minute orchestral work for the occasion. The resulting work, Tone Poem on the Ramayana, takes its inspiration from the story at the heart of Diwali: the Ramayana.
Performed beneath the monumental Raphael Cartoons in the V&A’s Raphael Court, the piece brought together the Third Culture Collective Orchestra with soloists Rekha Paunrana as Sita and Kavi Pau as Ram, conducted by Dan Gilchrist and featuring bansuri soloist Praveen Prathapan.
Rekha Paunrana as Sita
Across 30 minutes, Tone Poem on the Ramayana takes the audience on a whirlwind journey through the epic: from Ram and Sita falling in love and Ram’s exile to the forest, through their adventures with Hanuman and the battle against Ravan, to the triumphant return of Ram and Sita celebrated at Diwali.
Throughout the work, spoken dialogue unfolds against a continuously evolving orchestral score, with the orchestra painting the characters, landscapes and drama of the story. The tolling of funeral bells, the breaking of Ram’s bow and the descent of Hanuman’s monkey army are all vividly depicted in the music, creating a cinematic musical world around the storytelling.
Bansuri Soloist Praveen Prathapan
The narrative is broken up with well-loved Ram bhajans, newly arranged for the Third Culture Collective Orchestra. Familiar devotional melodies are transformed through large-scale orchestration, bringing together the intimacy and immediacy of the bhajan tradition with the scale of a symphony orchestra.
Performing the music surrounded by Raphael’s vast Renaissance works and the resonant acoustic of Raphael Court made the evening even more special.
Kavi Pau as Ram, with conductor Daniel Gilchrist and the Third Culture Collective Orchestra
The performance formed part of an evening raising funds for Pratham’s work in India. The 2025 Gala successfully raised more than £450,000 in support of programmes creating educational and empowerment opportunities for children, young people and women.
Our thanks to everyone at Pratham UK for inviting us to be part of such a special evening. It was a privilege to create and perform this new work in support of an organisation whose programmes have transformed educational opportunities for millions of people across India.
