A day with the living Baul tradition from Bengal

On this special day at Fonó, the audience will gain insight into the unique, living spirit of the Bengali Baul tradition. Through the songs, poetry, and daily rituals of Baul masters and their disciples, an atmosphere is created that brings spirituality closer and reveals the festive dimension of everyday life.

During the international gathering “Patchwork,” Maa Parvathy Baul’s disciples evoke the world of the Baul ashram with music, poetry, and conversations. In addition, a short film screening will enrich the event.

The program also features the launch of the album Song offerings – Lalan and Tagore, a Bengali–Hungarian collaboration between Maa Parvathy Baul and Béla Wittek, recorded at Fonó.

The day will conclude with Maa Parvathy Baul’s solo satsang performance offering a profound musical and spiritual experience through her own compositions.

7pm: Golden bird – Songs of Binadas (concert)

Maa Parvathy Baul is a Baul master, singer, storyteller, and painter hailing from West Bengal. Her musical and dance education began at an early age, leading her to study visual arts at Visva-Bharati University (Kala Bhavana faculty), founded by Tagore in Santiniketan. There, she first heard the concert of her master, Sanatan Das Baul, who deeply inspired her to become a practitioner of the ancient Baul tradition. She was formally initiated into the path by Sri Sanatan Das Baul and was later nurtured by her Shikshā Guru, Sri Shashanko Goshai.

Since 1995, she has been performing in her homeland, Bengal, and throughout India. She has also been invited to several international festivals, including the Festival de l’Imaginaire (Paris), the Festival International du Conte et du Monodrame (Beirut, Lebanon), and Ethnomad (Geneva, Switzerland). She has performed worldwide in renowned venues, such as the World Music Centre in New York, the University of Chicago, the Theatre of Peter Schumann (Bread and Puppet Theatre, Vermont, and the Noh Theatre in Kyoto, where she collaborated with Japanese performers of Kamigata-mai and Kyogen dance traditions. Her Baul songs, prints, and video-documents can be found in the South Asian collection of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, as well as in the British Museum in London. In 2018, she was honoured with one of the most prestigious Indian artistic awards, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

In 2017, she established Sanatan Siddhashram in the Birbhum district of West Bengal. In 2024 Sanatan Siddhashram took on the work to establish a spiritual university, Sanātan Siddhāshram Adhyatmika Viswa Vidya Satra. Through this initiative Parvathy Maa aims to establish a dedicated learning centre to further practise the Baul tradition in the contemporary world. She also aspires to create robust practice space for diverse ancient Indian knowledge systems such as Yoga, Tantra, Ayurveda and ritual performing arts from diverse Indic traditions.

Ticket price: 5000 HUF, supporter ticket: 8000 HUF