Jodhpur RIFF will celebrate its 20th anniversary this October with one of its most diverse editions yet, bringing together roots musicians from six continents at Mehrangarh Fort from October 22 to 26, timed to coincide with Sharad Purnima, the year’s brightest full moon.
Held under the aegis of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, the anniversary edition will feature artists from around a dozen countries, including Colombia, Chile, Cabo Verde, Poland, Scotland and Estonia. The programme will include seven artists and acts performing in India for the first time, alongside Indian legends, international roots musicians and more than 250 folk musicians from Rajasthan and other Indian states.
Over two decades, Jodhpur RIFF has built musical relationships that bring together artists through friendships, jam sessions and encounters on stages around the world. The 2026 edition represents the convergence of those relationships, with collaborations and performances bringing artists from Rajasthan, India and across the world together under one roof—or, in the case of Mehrangarh, under its open skies.
At the heart of the festival remain Rajasthan’s folk musicians, including performers from the Manganiyar, Langa, Meghwal, Bhopa, Kalbelia, Meena and Bhil communities, among others. More than 250 such musicians will return to the festival, whose stages have grown around the traditions they carry.
On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Jodhpur RIFF, Chief Patron HH Maharaja Gajsingh II of Marwar-Jodhpur said: “Jodhpur RIFF now sits strongly in our cultural landscape. Because of it, I have seen our Rajasthani folk artists receive worldwide acclaim as they present what they have inherited and mastered and also shine bright in unique music collaborations at the festival, which continues its essential function as a superb stepping stone, a bridge. And where our performers meet the world as they find their place in the modern music ecosystem. Here, the universal language of music resonates and is lovingly shared, relationships and networks are built, and revival and innovation are nourished.”
“Rajasthan’s artists have always been this festival’s lodestone— that hasn’t changed in twenty years. What we have built painstakingly at Jodhpur RIFF, with international, Indian and Rajasthani artists, is a platform, an equal playing field and much more. It is an environment where, on the one hand, Rajasthani artists can reframe the state’s greatest folk traditions for today’s audiences, at times pioneering a new medium, and, on the other hand, the finest roots performers from across Rajasthan, India and the world can dialogue with each other and collaborate to build something entirely new for the performing arts,” said Mr. Divya Bhatia, Festival Director.
Mehrangarh Becomes a Living Map of Sound
During the festival, Mehrangarh will host performances and events across its courtyards, gardens and surrounding spaces. Mornings will begin at Veer Durga Das Memorial Park before the fort itself wakes into song. The programme will include sunrise and moonrise concerts at Jaswant Thada, workshops and residencies at Chokelao Bagh, and evening concerts in the Zenana Courtyard.
As day turns to night, music will continue at Rao Jodha’s Desert Lounge before moving into the after-hours setting of Club Mehran at Salimkot. Across the five days, the historic fort and its surrounding venues will form the setting for performances, workshops, residencies and collaborations.
Performing in India for the First Time
The ARIA Award-winning Filipino-Murrawari rapper, drummer and composer DOBBY will make his first India appearance at Jodhpur RIFF. His work includes an album that turned river conservation into an anthem, as well as “I Can’t Breathe,” the song that became associated with Australia’s Black Lives Matter movement.
Camila y Silvio, two prominent names in Latin American folk music, will also make their India premiere. Their music brings together guitar, charango and legüero drum, drawing on the zamba, chacarera and cumbia rhythms of the Andes in songs centred on nature, ancestry and community.
Michael McGoldrick, widely considered one of the UK’s finest flute and Uilleann pipe players, will bring his artistry to India for the first time. He will reunite with BAFTA-nominated composer Donald Shaw, with whom he first developed a musical partnership decades ago. Shaw is returning to Jodhpur RIFF, and their appearance will mark the first time the long-running partnership has performed together in a new country.
Printz Board’s Butter Funk Family will also make its India debut, led by the two-time Grammy winner and built around tight drums, brass, staccato guitars and an energetic live performance style.
Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby will bring The Martha Redbone Roots Project to Jodhpur RIFF. The husband-wife duo, whose Tony-nominated Broadway score for For Colored Girls… established them as significant voices in America’s roots music scene, combine Appalachian roots, gospel, blues and Indigenous traditions. The New Yorker described the project as “a brilliant collision of cultures.”
The Book of Queens will make its India premiere as a collaboration spanning Iran, Europe and India. Created by Persian-speaking French opera singer Camille Bordet, the work revisits the stories of forgotten heroines, from Hildegard of Bingen to Mirabai. It will feature Hindustani vocalist Smita Bellur and Rajasthani kamaicha maestro Kode Khan Manganiyar. Co-commissioned and co-produced by Jodhpur RIFF, the production is also the festival’s ode to the women of Rajasthan.
Guitare Voginha of Cabo Verde will bring the musical legacy of the archipelago to the festival, carrying forward the tradition of his father, guitar legend Tazinho, through the morna and coladeira rhythms of island life.
Indian Legends and Maestros
Padma Shri vocalist Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, a torchbearer of the Jaipur-Atrauli Khayal tradition, will perform some of her gharana’s most demanding ragas.
Performer and educator Mangka Mayanglambam, one of the last living players of the pena—the Meitei court lute once forbidden to women—will bring together music and movement rooted in the instrument’s history of silence and defiance.
Pianist-composer Merlin D’Souza, known for her work across Bollywood, jazz and theatre, will unveil a soul symphony and world-music tapestry with sitar prodigy Chintan Katti, flautist Avadhoot Phadke, percussionist Aniruddha Shirke and festival artist-in-residence Ruby Abley on saxophone.
Jasleen Kaur Monga, trained in the Patiala Gharana since the age of thirteen, will perform raag-based Shabads, chants and Nirguni bhajans as the festival moves from night into sunrise.
Ambi Subramaniam, trained by his father Dr. L. Subramaniam, will lead a rare onstage dialogue between Carnatic and Hindustani traditions, centred on his distinctive violin technique.
Old Friends, New Chapters
Finnish fiddler Emilia Lajunen will return to Jodhpur RIFF, while Colombian DJ Killabeatmaker will build on the fusion of his previous festival appearance with Rajasthani percussion.
Estonian duo Puuluup will bring their interpretation of the near-vanished hiiu kannel, using loopers and electronic effects and singing in a patchwork of languages. Beyond their performance, the duo will lead a looping workshop with Rajasthani folk musicians to explore new possibilities for an ancient instrument.
Collaborations Built on Borrowed Time and Long Memory
Several collaborations at the 2026 edition have emerged from recent encounters around the world.
One collaboration involving SAZ—the trio of young Langa masters Sadiq Khan, Asin Khan and Zakir Khan Langa—and Michael McGoldrick and Donald Shaw was born at Scotland’s Celtic Connections in January.
Another began at Lincoln Center in June, where Martha Redbone crossed paths with SAZ during a performance of Inayat: A Duet for Four, itself a Jodhpur RIFF original. The encounter led to plans for a partnership that will be developed at this year’s festival.
In another meeting of traditions, Emilia Lajunen will bring her fiddle into dialogue with SAZ member Asin Khan Langa’s Sindhi sarangi, connecting two musical traditions born a hemisphere apart.
The festival will also bring together Polish singer Karolina Cicha, who is dedicated to reviving her country’s vanishing Tatar music, and Anita Dangi, a hereditary keeper of Rajasthan’s classical Rajwaadi Maand tradition, in a collaboration between two artists preserving significant musical traditions.
Rajasthan, Rewritten in Its Own Voice
At Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, Mir Bassu Khan of Bikaner’s Mir-e-Alam community will perform Seraiki mystical poetry associated with Baba Farid, Bulleh Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Farid.
Padma Shri awardee Taga Ram, who has spent 50 years mastering the Bhil community’s double flute, the alghoza, will bring to the stage an instrument and technique that have travelled to 35 countries.
Brothers Ghewar Khan and Darre Khan Manganiyar, sons of the legendary Padma Shri Sakar Khan, remain among the last masters of the fretless kamaicha. They will be joined onstage by their brother Feroze Khan on dholak.
Asin Khan Langa, an Aga Khan Music Award recipient trained under Lakha Khan Manganiyar, will represent the Sindhi sarangi tradition, an instrument closely associated with the qualities of the human voice.
The programme will also feature more than 100 young Langa and Manganiyar artists trained through the Mehrangarh Museum Music Projects’ Folk Futures programme, signalling the continued transmission of these traditions to the next generation.
Women Rajasthani artists featured this year will include Anita Dangi, Meghwal sisters Dariya and Kewal, and mother-daughter duo Ganga and Sundar, all associated with a centuries-old oral lineage in Rajwadi Maand.
Theatre at Jodhpur RIFF
For the first time, Jodhpur RIFF will also present spoken theatre with Brhannala, Adishakti Theatre’s movement-driven retelling of the Mahabharata story of Arjuna’s year in disguise as a dance teacher.
Originally directed by Veenapani Chawla and performed by Vinay Kumar, the production is a meditation on Advaita and transformation, exploring the idea that losing the self may become a means of finding it.
