MUMBAI: Kartik Shah and Nirali Kartik aka Maati Baani, one of the best musical duos, who has swayed people with their magical voices would be making their way at the tenth edition of TEDxGateway. The event will be held on 2 December 2018 at the DOME (NSCI Mumbai).

Before their TEDxGateway appearance, we spoke to them about their association with TEDxGateway, key points they would be speaking on and more. Check it out below.

Could you throw light on your musical journey?

Our journey, in music, is a never-ending one. It’s our purpose and takes the centre - stage of our lives. Though we come from different musical backgrounds, with Maati Baani, we find a common ground, where we can bring our different musical styles together and celebrate them! 

How has your association with TEDxGateway been? How has your experience been on collaborating with them? 

Earlier in 2016 TEDxGateway, Yashraj Akashi reached out to us to speak and perform in our signature collaborative style. The artiste, we had for this performance, was a French Hurdy Gurdy player (a medieval age European instrument). It was received amazingly by the audience there. Going forward, Mr Akashi put an open canvas in front of us and asked us to invite our dream collaborators for TEDxGateway 2018. So, now we have some artists coming all the way from Mongolia and Australia to perform with us. These are the artists with whom we always wanted to co-create music and it’s finally happening at TEDxGateway2018.

 Can you elaborate on your preparation?  

After doing many internet collaborations, we now understand the process of working with artists from other countries is better than we previously did. The process involves connecting with the artists and finding a common connection between us, musically. Once we strike this connection, the next step is to format the musical piece and send across to the artists. The artists will fill in their audio parts and send back to us. We will make a final format stitching all the pieces together. All the audio production is done by Kartik. Lastly, before everyone comes together in the same room, every musician will know, which instrument he/she has to play! 

What are the key points you would be talking about at TEDxGateway? 

Ours is more of a performance and music is a language that transcends all differences of cultures, countries, etc. The name of our piece is called The Horse Who Plucked the Guitar Strings. Our idea with this performance is to demonstrate the universality of Indian music and how musicians across the world are global ambassadors of peace and universal love.

What are your current projects?

We just finished our mammoth child prodigy collaboration with child artistes across the globe. The song we chose was We Are the Champions and we are elated that the Official Queen team has shared our version of the song.