Sarang Phagre
Sarang Phagre is a Raga Sangeet practitioner, based out of Bhopal. All his endeavors—whether learning and teaching music, singing, composing recording or managing light and sound for classical dance performances, organizing workshops and baithaks, —have enriched him with different perspectives in his pursuit of understanding and performing raga Sangeet.
From an early age, he was exposed to music and dance, as both his parents, Abhay Phagre (Flautist) and Bindu Juneja (Odissi dancer) are performing artists and teachers. Many aspects of practicing the arts seeped into his consciousness unknowingly, while some were consciously discussed, such as the inseparable relationship of the tanpura with raga Sangeet, and the significance of every stance and movement of a dancer having a meaningful connection with music and its context. Concepts like attentive listening, visual alignment, harmony, the discipline of practice (riyaaz), and the idea of art as a mode of thinking, feeling, and being, were integral in his formative years.
This upbringing guided him to mentors like the late Vidushi Meera Rao and Pt. Vijay Sardeshmukh who deeply immersed themselves in the exploration of Raga Sangeet. Learning from them has been a journey of understanding and internalizing the guiding principles of art, nurturing a keen critical awareness, and discovering the beauty of expression for himself.
Sarang has performed in intimate baithaks in many cities across the country and also at prestigious venues such as Bharat Bhavan Bhopal, NID Bhopal, Deval Club Kolhapur, India International Centre (IIC) Delhi, YK Antiques Museum Hyderabad.
Apart from solo performances, Sarang has been composing and singing for Odissi dance. He has also been part of the first serendipity arts festival (2016) Goa as a sound recordist and stage management team of Odissi exponent Bindu Juneja for her production Narmada Parikrama.
In 2018 he worked on music and light for the curated production of Odissi recital at the International conference on Anchoring Innovations in Handloom weaving in India at Chirala (Andhra Pradesh).
He has been awarded the scholarship for vocal music by the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, for the year 2018 - 2020 and the A grade by the All India Radio.
In 2020, Sarang co-curated an online platform, Urdhvam which invited artists to present their work followed by an interaction with team Urdhvam in the presence of online audiences.
Sarang has conducted a number of workshops in offline as well as online platforms such as Shikshantar Andolan, Urdhvam Workshops, National Power Training Institute(NPTI) Faridabad.