A hundred strings, one raag: the ensemble that filled the hall

Solo instruments make reluctant orchestras. Every sitar bends notes its own way, which is the whole beauty of one and the whole problem with thirty. The academy's answer was discipline: a single raag, a fixed arrangement, and tuning checks between every section.

The performers spanned nine to seventy. Seniors anchored the melody while first-years held the drone lines, promoted one row forward as they improved — a seating chart that doubled as a report card.

The sound, when it finally locked together, was physical. Audience members described feeling it in the floorboards. The conductor — a title he accepted under protest — refused a bow and pointed both hands back at the rows of students.

The academy plans to make it annual. Enrolment enquiries doubled within a week, which the office manager announced with the weary satisfaction of a man who will now have to find thirty more chairs.