Vivan & Ketan Bhatti

Ketan Bhatti is a crossover artist, moving between different genres and cultural spheres. His works range from contemporary chamber music, experimental music and dance theatre as well as stage and film music to electronic, hip-hop-based productions. Ketan was able to pursue his interest in experimental, music-theatrical hybrid forms of concert and academical discourse from 2010 to 2012 with a scholarship at the Graduate School for the Arts and Sciences at the Universität der Künste (UdK) Berlin. With Cymin Samawatie, Ketan founded the Trickster Orchestra for contemporary, trans-traditional soundscapes in 2013, which was awarded the German Jazz Prize and the TONALi Award in 2022. In 2023, Ketan received the GEMA German Music Authors’ Award 2023 for intercultural composition.

Vivan Bhatti studied music at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich and the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. He works as a freelance composer, guitarist and theatre musician. His works range from contemporary chamber music, experimental music and dance theatre, stage and film music to electronic hip-hop based productions. Vivan Bhatti's music is included in productions at many major German-speaking theatres (including Deutsches Theater Berlin, Schauspiel Köln, Staatstheater Dresden, Residenztheater München).

Since 2003, Ketan and Vivan Bhatti have composed the music for Nuran David Calis theatre productions and since 2009 for the shows of the Berlin dance company Flying Steps such as the music for the urban dance show Flying Pictures in collaboration with the artist duo Osgemeos and premiered at the Hamburger Bahnof in Berlin. Ketan and Vivan Bhatti's music theatre pieces are based on collaborations with authors such as Feridun Zaimoglu or Roland Schimmelpfennig, and pose questions about integration and exclusion, receiving premieres at the Neuköllner Oper, the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin or the Staatsoper Hannover, among others. Vivan and Ketan's joint orchestral debut album Flying Pictures at an Exhibition was released on Sony Classical.

Together, Vivan and Ketan scored the recent film adaptations of Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen and Büchner's Woyzeck with Tom Schilling.

Their most recent work – the opera Berlin Alexanderplatz – is the first setting of Alfred Döblin's novel of the same title and premiered at the Bielefeld Theatre on September 4, 2022.