Experience a week of classical, jazz and folk music with Newham Music and BTL Jazz.

From 17-21 June, enjoy a series of free concerts at Newham Music Hub: Westfield Stratford City, at 1-1.45pm and 4-4.45pm daily.

Bring your lunch or a coffee and drop in – no booking required.

Divyanand Caird – Saraswati Vina

Divyanand Caird is a London based Indian Classical Musician of the Karnatak (Carnatic) Music genre specialising in performance and teaching of the Saraswati Vina (South Indian Lute).

About Divyanand Caird

Divyanand Caird began his journey in music from an early age and has been part of Brhaddhvani (‘Big Sound’ or ‘Universe of Sound’), a premier world music and research institute based in Chennai, South India to study Carnatic Music for nearly a two decades. He is one of the prime disciples of Vina maestro Dr. Karaikudi S. Subramanian, a ninth-generation musician from the illustrious Karaikudi Vina Tradition and founder of Brhaddhvani. 

Divyanand has extensively toured with Dr. Subramanian to North America and Europe for performances and workshops. In 2017, he founded Brhaddhvani Global Centre for Music, a registered charity in the UK to propagate the Karaikudi Vina Tradition and Dr. Subramanian’s pioneering teaching methodology COMET (Correlated Objective Music Education and Training) to enable people from all backgrounds and walks of life to learn music from a global context.  He is a resident artist at PRSSV Institute of Performing Arts and Heritage, one UK’s premier institutions propagating Global Music and Dance and is part of their board of examinations. In 2022, Divyanand joined Newham Music as a teacher and has been developing the curriculum and teaching Indian music at schools in Newham borough. He has been actively performing, teaching, and working with music educators across the UK. 

Divyanand’s current interests are showcasing the heritage of the Saraswati Vina to a global audience and exploring sound therapy, cross cultural collaborations of Carnatic music with other art forms such as Jazz, Western classical, Dance and poetry in addition to Blues. His research interests extend to ethnomusicology, pedagogical frameworks for effective teaching methods (both online and face-to-face) for Carnatic music, global music cultures as well as indigenous music.