Indian music is poised to make global cultural history as Carnegie Hall announces its first-ever Indian Music Festival, set to launch in 2027. Conceived as an annual three-day event, the festival will embed Hindustani and Carnatic classical traditions alongside film, folk, Sufi, indie and contemporary crossover sounds marking a structural shift in how Indian music is positioned within one of the world’s most influential music institutions.
At the heart of the initiative is Indo-American philanthropist, vocalist and composer Ila Paliwal, whose $10 million endowment ensures the festival’s permanence. While Carnegie Hall has hosted Indian legends before from Ravi Shankar to Zakir Hussain and L Subrahmanyam, Paliwal says those appearances, though historic, were fleeting.
“I grew up watching Indian maestros walk onto global stages as guests — revered, applauded, and then gone,” she tells midday. “What struck me was not the absence of brilliance, but the absence of continuity. Those were moments. I wanted to build a movement.”
For Paliwal, the gap Indian music faced on global platforms was never artistic. She argues that while Indian music has long influenced the world, it has not been structurally embedded into Western institutions. “Music should be universal, and yet Indian music hasn’t had a permanent address. Hopefully, this festival gives it not just a weekend, but a home.”
Curation will resist narrow definitions. “Indian music is not a genre, it’s a lineage,” she says. The classical systems of Hindustani and Carnatic music will form the festival’s intellectual core, but India’s evolving musical landscape will be equally present. Film music, folk traditions, Sufi sounds and contemporary expressions all belong, she believes, “as long as they are rooted in craft.”
A key concern for Paliwal is avoiding the exoticisation that often accompanies non-Western art in global spaces. The aim, she says, is to present Indian music as a living, sophisticated system of thought. Artists will be positioned as composers and innovators, supported by masterclasses, conversations and integration into Carnegie Hall’s digital education archives.
The scale of the endowment, Paliwal explains, is about intent rather than spectacle. “Culture becomes normal through repetition,” she says. “This is not about a beautiful experiment. I wanted Indian music to enter Carnegie Hall’s bloodstream.The artist in me is fiercely protective of nuance of the invisible years of rigour behind every swar,” she says. “The patron in me thinks about legacy and infrastructure. One keeps the other honest.”
Looking ahead to 2032, five years after the festival’s launch, her vision of success is deliberately understated. “Success is when this no longer feels groundbreaking,” she says. She imagines a future where an Indian composer premieres work at Carnegie Hall without being labeled “world music,” where collaborations between Indian and Western artists feel natural and where conservatories teach raga with the same seriousness as harmony.
“When Ravi Shankar collaborated with Yehudi Menuhin, it was historic,” Paliwal reflects. “I hope that by 2032, that kind of exchange feels completely normal.”
Ila Paliwal
Festival framework
Conceived as an annual three-day event, the festival will embed Hindustani and Carnatic classical traditions alongside film, folk, Sufi, indie, and contemporary crossover sounds — marking a structural shift in how Indian music is positioned within one of the world’s most influential music institutions
