The Orchestral Qawwali Project, a unique concert experience that blends Sufi poetry, Indian classical dance, and orchestral sound, comes to Toronto for the first time on February 13, 2026. The performance features singer Abi Sampa, and composer/musician Rushil Ranjan, who created the work.
The traditional purpose of qawwali is to lead its listeners into a kind of spiritual rapture. This conversation between the Sufi devotional tradition and Western symphonic form reaches out to South Asian and Urdu-speaking diasporas, along with music lovers of all backgrounds.
LV spoke to composer Rushil Ranjan about the Project.
Orchestral Qawwali: Rushil Ranjan & Abi Sampa with the The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, recorded live at Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow on October 14, 2022:
Composer Rushil Ranjan: The Interview
London-based composer, arranger, and producer Rushil Ranjan’s work creates bridges between classical artworks from around the globe. He’s written music for a variety of media and formats, including concert, dance productions, and TV and film projects.
“I didn’t have a classical education in either Indian or Western music,” Ranjan begins.
That’s a pretty remarkable journey for someone who is now Associate Artist at the Royal Albert Hall, Collaborative Artist of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Artistic Partner at Manchester Camerata. His career in orchestral music actually began in 2020 with the Orchestral Qawwali Project, which he created with fellow Associate Artist Abi Sampa, his partner.
But, his first exposure to Sufi music dates back farther, to about 2015.
“I was immediately drawn to it,” he says. He met classical Indian singer Abi Sampa around the same time, and eventually the two put together a recording project. “I was tasked with basically producing the record.”
He recalls that one of the first ideas that came to mind was using string players. He recruited a cellist, who played along with Sampa’s vocals. Ranjan created a multi-track piece with it that was an immediate hit.
“It kind of went viral online,” he says. The single, an arrangement of the ancient Sufi poem “Man Kunto Maula”, was used by Coca Cola and other companies for advertising, furthering its reach.
The next big break came just after the COVID lockdowns lifted.
“We got a call from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,” he says. “It was a dream to be asked.” The music was performed live in concert to widespread acclaim. “The benefit was that we were part of a double bill with with Anoushka Shankar.”
Rushil was working on the music via computer at the time, downloading patches for every single line in the orchestra, and using midi to write out the score. He then worked with a copyist to transfer it to Sibelius, a notation program that put it into the parts the musicians could read.
“It kind of worked incrementally from that,” he says.
When he was contacted to work with Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman to perform with his Firdaus Orchestra in Dubai a short time later, it sparked a road to educating himself on the art of symphonic arrangements.
“I went through this incredibly painful but rewarding process,” he says. “I think the fact that I had no idea what the ecosystem was, and how it worked, that it gave me a silly sense of confidence,” he laughs.
Next came a commission from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and he first began to think about fully composing for orchestra rather than creating arrangements based on what he’d written via midi. He’d already written music for choirs, so it seemed the next logical step.
“I unwittingly found where I wanted to be,” he says. “It’s an endless journey.”
As he points out, when you’re writing for film and TV previously (and many of those productions won BAFTA awards), it’s music that’s not necessarily designed for live performance. You can write for any kind of instrumentation or ensemble.
“It’s a difference,” he notes. With a live orchestra, you have to work with the musicians and materials on hand. “There’s no studio automation that’s going to save you.”
These days, he’s using score pads to compose. That doesn’t mean he’s abandoned technology, however. “The wonderful thing about technology is that you can mock things up and get an idea of how it sounds,” he points out.
He’s hooked, however, on working with a live orchestra.
“Everything that we do, whatever we put in, no matter how it damages our budgets on stage, we love having real musicians doing it on stage,” he says. That goes for recorded music as well. “It’s very rare for us to leave midi in a final piece.” He mentions “the privilege of being able to create for real musicians to be able to interpret.”
“It takes on entirely different dimensions.”
Tu Hi Tu (Live in Birmingham) with Rushil Ranjan, Abi Sampa, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Ben Palmer, Jan 17, 2025:
On Sufi Music
What makes Sufi music unique?
“It originated in the 13th century in Mogol India,” he explains. When the Persian Empire arrived in India, they brought their own traditions. The music came to incorporate chanting, and the concept of using music to access divinity. Other elements imported from Persian include phrases that are repeated with clapping.
“In music, it’s very plural,” he notes. The lyrics are used by some to pray in temples, by others in mosques. “We are all trying to access the same thing,” Ranjan says. “It’s quite direct and quite potent. It was designed to be very accessible, to bring as many people into that fold as possible.”
Indian classical music, with all its inherent complexity, wasn’t part of the mix at first.
“Interestingly, if you look at the origins of both Indian and Sufi music, and Western classical music, they all have religious origins,” Rushil points out. “You can still feel that divinity at times when you listen to certain pieces.”
That shared origin impulse and purpose is part of what makes sense when it comes to blending the orchestral and Sufi musical traditions together. “That’s why they sit together so well.”
Sufi music, as he notes, has already been paired with a number of other genres, including dance and trance music. Those genres also have some shared commonalities, including the rhythmic elements of dance.
“The whirling dervishes, in particular in Turkish forms of Sufi music, have always been used to illustrate the trance-like nature of the music.” In Sufi music, it’s about getting lost in a kind of spiritual ecstasy.
“If you listen to a qawwali,” he says, “it’s three or four phrases.” The lyrics repeat those phrases. “The Sufi dances do the same thing but with movement.”
The Qawwali Project adds elements of classical Indian tradition back into the fold when it comes to movement.
“It makes it slightly more interesting to watch.”
The Orchestral Qawwali Project in Toronto
For the Toronto performance, they’ll be working with local dancers on stage. The majority of the musicians on stage, and the choir, will also be Toronto artists. There’s a total of 69 artists of various kinds on stage for the performance.
“The vast majority of performers on stage are Canadian.” Naturally, the logistics of bringing such a large ensemble from the UK are prohibitive, but there are other advantages to using local musicians for each concert on tour. “It’s still much more wonderful to do it this way, because every orchestra has a different tonality,” he says.
“It’s the first time I’ll be playing in Canada,” he adds, remarking that he’s excited to hear what it will sound like with local artist. “It just brings different flavour to the music. It’s exciting for us.”
He points out that the Meridian Hall is a relatively large venue, something that hasn’t always been the case for previous performances. “We’re an independent act,” he notes. He’s grateful for the response from Toronto music lovers so far.
“There’s been such a wonderful response to this.”
- Find tickets and event details [HERE].
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