About

_{Ritika Ganguly is a Minneapolis-based Composer, Anthropologist, and Grant Writing Consultant born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her consulting practice and artistic practice both strive for an equality based on difference, rather than on the similarity of things, people, and knowledges.}

_{She was commissioned as a composer by The Cedar Cultural Center in 2016, received the Naked Stages award in 2017, and an MRAC Next Step Fund award in 2018 for her research and new musical work in Baul (Bengali Sufi music/poetry). She has trained in genres within Bengali music and contemporary Indian musical theater. She was recently commissioned by the Minnesota Opera to compose a mini opera in Bangla. ‘Xylem’ is an opera without notated scores, sung in a South Asian folk opera format of stylized speech and narration.}

_{Ritika’s vocal, compositional, and coaching work pushes us to rely less on music notation and theory, and more on audiative practices that deepen our aptitude to hear and vocalize. She trains in the field with Baul poet-practitioners on what it means to develop aural skills in community.}

_{She received a Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individuals Award and a Jerome Foundation Finalist Award in 2021. She is also a recipient of the 2021 McKnight Composers Fellowship at the American Composers Forum. Ritika’s work during the fellowship period will continue to bring disparate musicianships, musical styles, methods, literatures, and disciplines together. She is a lover of loose, long-leaf tea, and has an impulse to connect with people over cha (tea).}