Soumik Datta
Soumik Datta is a musician, beat poet and producer who draws from personal stories to make immersive creations.
Born in India and raised in London, Soumik Datta first came to prominence as a master of the sarod, performing with a disparate assortment of artists including Anoushka Shankar, Jay-Z, Bill Bailey and Beyonce. A composition graduate from London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, he lists Radiohead, M.I.A., Gustavo Santaolalla, Ustad Zair Hussain, Shakti, Akram Khan Company, Complicité and Gecko Theatre among his influences and inspirations.
His recent work has seen Datta join with fresh collaborators to produce cinematic works that draw on concepts of identity, memory, and shared human experience. ‘Each of my shows to date has been an organic stepping stone to the next one, explains Datta. ‘In many ways they are the same show, the same piece of clay and I am iterating on it in different ways. As I grow, my understanding of the world changes and so does my work’.
Datta has a long association with the Southbank Centre having first appeared here as a teenager, accompanying his guru, Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta, on the sarod. Among his many return appearances are a headline Queen Elizabeth Hall performance as part of Alchemy festival and most recently, in the same space in 2022, the physical premiere of his piece ‘Happy Notes’. This recurring connection led Datta to say of his Southbank Centre Studio, ‘whilst this residency is a dream for most artists, for me it is also a homecoming’.
‘It’s a blessing to have creative time and technical support on a world class stage to continue developing my work. I’m deeply grateful for this opportunity.’
In 2023 Datta began working on a trilogy which addresses memory, migration and climate, and his Southbank Centre Studio residency will be spent further developing this work. He hopes to present the first part of the trilogy, ‘Mone Rehko’ which looks at memory and the human mind, in our Purcell Room, before using the time and space to collaborate with his team on the trilogy’s second instalment, ‘Borderlands’, which focuses on migration and displacement. With ‘Borderlands’ set to be premiered in our Queen Elizabeth Hall in May 2024, Datta’s Southbank Centre Studio offers an opportune time to hone the work.
As much of Datta’s current work relies on surround sound, projected visuals and musicians experimenting with space, finding the right environment to develop these productions can be difficult. This Southbank Centre Studio will provide Datta not only with that space, but also valuable technical support. ‘I’m deeply grateful for this opportunity, and I’m expecting the week to offer a few eureka moments, some conundrums that need solving, and if we’re lucy, one or two unexpected moments of sheer creativity’.