Performance
Where poetry
becomes encounter.
Living Songs presents North Indian contemplative poetry as a living musical practice. Concerts combine singing with concise translation and cultural context, creating meeting places for sound, language, philosophy, memory, and community.
Artist history and continuing collaboration
Performing with Prahlad Singh Tipaniya
Prahlad Singh Tipaniya is a Padma Shri–honored folk singer and teacher from Madhya Pradesh whose work has helped sustain and renew the oral singing of Kabir in the Malwa region.
Living Songs founder Priyal Maheshwari travelled and performed with Tipaniya and his ensemble during a 50-plus-performance tour in 2024. That tour belongs to Maheshwari’s earlier artist history and is not presented as a Living Songs production.
The relationship continues through performance, retreats, song learning, translation, and documentation. The record includes public concerts, universities, intimate gatherings, rehearsal, travel, conversation, and moments of direct teaching.
Performance record
Learning carried into performance
Living Songs keeps public performance connected to relationship, direct learning, cultural context, and the meanings carried by the songs.
Priyal’s solo work
A voice carrying song and meaning
Priyal’s solo work brings Kabir bhajans into concert halls, community spaces, universities, contemplative gatherings, and homes.
Singing is joined with concise translation, context, and reflection so that new audiences can encounter the poem without reducing the tradition to explanation. In April 2026, Priyal completed a 14-show solo tour in the United States, alongside work in India.
The format can move between full concert, intimate gathering, lecture-demonstration, and participatory song learning.
Intimate performance
Song, meaning, and conversation
A home gathering allows the sung poem and its explanation to remain closely connected.
Selected performances
Different rooms, one living tradition
Public stages, universities, temples, and homes each create a different kind of encounter with the sung poem.
Invitation
A program shaped for the place
Living Songs is available for concerts, lecture-demonstrations, participatory workshops, contemplative gatherings, and university programs.