Performing Modernity Musicophilia in Bombay/Mumbai

This paper outlines the place of Hindustani art music in the metropolis of Bombay/Mumbai, and its role in the fashioning of public spaces from the late 19th century to the 1960s. This music began to take root here in the 1850s, and eventually became intimately associated with the city. With the fall of Awadh in northern India in 1857 and the dispersal of the court that had inherited Hindustani music from the Mughal empire, the singers, instrumentalists and dancers began to migrate to the ‘native states’, big and small, seeking new patrons. Through the 19th century, Bombay city grew in importance as a major centre of trade and commerce, and markets for entertainment as well as forms of patronage emerged. The city came to occupy a central position in assembling the new structures and spaces of performance, pedagogy, recording and consumption of this music.