Ritika and Shinjan invite adventurous audiences into their genre-bending conversations with music in their first language - Bangla. As a duo, they are known and loved for drawing the listener into familiar, future, and faraway worlds as they connect our everyday with 200 year-old songs and poems written in specific geo-cultural contexts of pre- and post-partition India and Bangladesh. They are most loved for the creation and recent presentation of a South Asian folk opera on climate colonialism - 'The Mushroom that Swallowed the Moon Whole' that premiered at the MN Opera in Fall 2024.
Ritika Ganguly is a St. Paul-based composer and anthropologist born and raised in New Delhi, India. She has trained in genres within Bengali music, and is committed to vocabulary-building of South Asian folk music in the Twin Cities. Ritika is a 2021 McKnight Composers Fellow, and her body of work has been supported by the Minnesota Opera, Jerome Foundation, MRAC, Red Eye Theater, Cedar Cultural Center, Minnesota State Arts Board, among others.
Shinjan Sengupta grew up in Kolkata, India, immersed in music of genres ranging from Indian semi-classical, Bengali folk and Baul, to classic rock, blues, western folk, and country. He started his musical journey with the Bansuri and now enjoys blending genres on the guitar. He is constantly exploring ways to amalgamate sounds from various origins to create his own style. In the Twin Cities, he has performed at the Cedar Cultural Center, and has composed music for productions at the Katha Dance Theater and Minnesota Opera, among others.
OCE features veteran musicians from the Twin Cities, performing traditional music from the northern Mediterranean region ranging from Spanish Sephardic to Greek and Turkish music, and original compositions inspired by the regions. They weave tales of the history of the music from 711 A.D on and the fusion of sounds that spread through the Mediterranean, as well as the instruments they perform.
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Ritika Ganguly Website
Tickets are $10 in Advance / $15 at the Door. Doors open at 7pm. Online ticket sales end at 6pm.
Our full restaurant and bar service is available in the theater! Order from your seat and enjoy the show, we'll take care of the rest.
We recommend arriving early to grab a drink and find your spot; please keep in mind that we stop seating 30 minutes after the show starts.