Alaya: Music & Mind Workshop

A free, hands on workshop exploring how raga music can calm, focus and lift the mind, led by award-winning sarod player, musician and composer Soumik Datta and Professor of Psychiatry, Dr Naaheed Mukadam from University College of London. No experience needed.

Can music change the way we feel and think?

Alaya is a new music and science programme exploring how raga music affects mood, attention and memory, and this is one of its very first public sessions.

Led by Soumik Datta and Dr Naaheed Mukadam, the workshop guides you through simple, joyful exercises drawn from Indian musical traditions: breathing with a drone, singing ragas and melodies, and rhythm games using Indian vocal syllables. Along the way, Naaheed shares what science is beginning to tell us about how music shapes the brain.

Alaya brings together centuries old musical knowledge and modern research, and these sessions help shape how the programme develops. Open to everyone, whatever your age or musical background. Just bring your voice.

Presented by Soumik Datta Arts, supported by Arts Council England.

Soumik Datta
Soumik Datta is a sarod player, composer and BBC presenter, and founding director of Soumik Datta Arts a charity that promotes Indian music, learning and creative health. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was an Artist in Residence. He is the winner of the Aga Khan Music Award. Soumik performs in concert halls internationally but his work also reaches schools, care homes, clinics and asylum centres, using music as a tool for connection and community.

Dr Naaheed Mukadam
Dr Naaheed Mukadam is Professor of Psychiatry at University College London and an adviser to Alzheimer's Society. Her research focuses on dementia and brain health, including how culturally meaningful interventions can support people from South Asian communities. 

• Website: soumikdatta.com
• Instagram: @soumikdatta @naaheedmukadam