Padma Shri Prahlad Singh Tipanya is one of India’s most popular and highly honored folk singers. Renowned for singing the songs of Kabir, the great iconoclastic mystic of 15th-century North India, Tipanya is also a highly respected interpreter of Kabir’s spirituality.
We are delighted to welcome this extraordinary musician and his troupe back to San Diego some 20 years after their first, unforgettably wonderful concert at the University of San Diego during their first US tour in 2003.
Tipanya and his troupe of three musicians from his home village in North India will present a concert of devotional songs based on the mystical poems (dohas) of Kabir.
During the concert, Dr. Linda Hess, retired professor of religious studies at Stanford University and a leading scholar and translator of Kabir, will present translations of the powerful poetry that the musicians will sing.
Tickets
General Seating: $40
Please purchase tickets online. Tickets are transferrable but non-refundable.
The Poet-Saint
Kabir is famous for both his profound mystical insight and his sharp social commentary. He was at once a yogi, celebrating union with the divine present in all beings, and a forceful advocate of communal harmony and social equality. A low-caste weaver who debunked birth-based systems of hierarchy, Kabir remains a hero for downtrodden communities in North India today. His poetry is known for pushing us beyond social, religious, and caste distinctions, promoting awareness of our universal belonginness.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death. If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
Seekers, listen: Wherever you are is the entry point. —Kabir
The Musician
Prahlad Singh Tipanya has powerfully contributed to a resurgence of Kabir oral traditions and music in India and beyond.
Tipanya lives in his natal village of Lunyakhedi in Madhya Pradesh, north-central India, the heart of the cultural region known as Malwa. A village schoolteacher, Tipanya began singing Kabir’s dohas and playing the 5-string tambura in the folk style of the Malwa region in 1978, when he was 24.
Now almost five decades later, he is a household name in India; countless people enjoy his audio and video presence as well as his live performances. His official YouTube channel has 335K subscribers.
From the 1980s, Tipanya-ji’s voice has been heard widely on All India Radio and Doordarshan, the Indian national television network. He and his troupe have been performing internationally since their first US tour in 2003, followed by further North American tours in 2009 and 2017. The group’s Spring 2024 US tour will take them coast-to-coast, playing at venues including UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, Loyola Marymount, the University of Chicago, the University of Cincinnati, and Oberlin College.
In his homeland, Tipanya has received numerous honors, including the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy award and, in 2011, the Padma Shri award, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Government of India.
Presented in partnership with the Indian Fine Arts Academy of San Diego.
