School of Arts

Arka Chakraborty

Key information

Roles
School of Arts PhD researcher
Department
School of Arts
Qualifications
MPhil, English Literature (Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India)
Email address
684572@soas.ac.uk
Thesis title
Anglophone music in Calcutta, c. 1953-1982

Biography

Arka is a music historian specialising in postcolonial Calcutta. Drawing from a vast array of official and personal archives, and field interviews, his multisensorial and multilingual doctoral project throws light into the musical interflows between the Anglophone and vernacular spaces that have inhabited the metropolis. For the same, Arka is looking into Calcuttan Anglophone band music networks, popular music in print, musical salaciousness, and the politics of Bengali translation within the pop-rock aesthetic. After two years of digging out Calcutta’s lost sonic architectures, he is now in the early stages of writing-up.  On the performative side, Arka is a singer-songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist. A television artiste, he specialises in Bangla adhunik, having trained under the tutelage of Pt. Jayanta Sarkar. Currently, he is developing his knowledge of Hindustani ragas from Budhaditya Bhattacharyya, a disciple of Pt. Ajoy Chakrabarty. Arka's recent performances include prestigious venues like the Old Bailey in London and the Durham Oriental Museum. 

Research interests

Music History; Popular Music; South Asian Studies; Ethnomusicology