The Breath of Khayal: Masterclass & Concert

✨ A Once-in-a-Lifetime Musical Offering ✨
Astralab presents a rare and intimate evening with Ustaad Rauf Saami & Ustaad Urooj Saami, torchbearers of an 800-year-old Khayal tradition.
Join us for:
🎶 Khayal Masterclass (2–5pm)
🎶 Live Sacred Khayal Concert (7–9:30pm)
Attend one or both.
This is more than a performance — it is a living transmission of ancestral sound.
This will be a rare and sacred musical gathering — witnessing a living lineage of devotional sound. Join us for an intimate Khayal Masterclass and Sacred Concert with Ustaad Rauf Saami and Ustaad Urooj Saami, torchbearers of an unbroken 800-year oral tradition rooted in the Qawwal Bachha Gharana of the Indian subcontinent.
This offering is more than a concert — it is a transmission of ancestral intelligence through raag, microtonality, and centuries-old poetic devotion. Held in the heart of Los Angeles at the historic Granada Buildings, this event opens the doors to a deep listening experience that invites the soul to remember.
We begin with a Khayal Masterclass from 2–5pm, where participants will be guided through the luminous Raag Aiman — an evening raga known to evoke peace, clarity, and heartfelt devotion. No formal training or language knowledge is required. This experience is open to all who are curious, reverent, and drawn to sacred sound as a path of awakening.
From 7–9:30pm, we gather for a sacred concert performance — an immersive sonic journey led by the Ustaads, featuring live Khayal in its purest form. You may attend one or both segments.
What is Khayal? Khayal (literally, “imagination”) is a classical vocal tradition of profound subtlety, depth, and improvisation. Unlike Western musical systems, Khayal explores the microtonal spaces between notes, known as shrutis — an auditory refinement that requires decades to master. Ustaad Rauf and Urooj Saami are among the only living vocalists who sing using 49 microtones, offering a rare glimpse into an ancient system designed not just to entertain, but to elevate and attune the listener’s inner world.
What is Sama? Sama is the devotional music of the Sufis — a tradition of sacred song designed to guide the heart into remembrance (zikr) of the Divine Beloved. With poetic roots in Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi, and lyrics drawn from mystic masters like Rumi, Hafez, and Amir Khusrau, Sama is less performance, more invocation — a musical sama’a intended to open ecstatic states of love and unity.
In a world often drowned in noise, the Saami Brothers offer a countercultural medicine — one of patience, depth, lineage, and listening. Their work reminds us that music can be a technology for the soul, a practice of sustained attention, and a bridge across time, language, and spirit.
🌿 Space is limited — reserve early to be part of this rare and intimate event.
📍 Granada Buildings, Los Angeles
📧 Student discounts & inquiries: Email lila@teapot.la
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🎙️ Meet the Ustaads: Rauf & Urooj Saami
Ustaad Rauf Saami and Ustaad Urooj Saami are master vocalists and torchbearers of the Qawwal Bachha Delhi Gharana, one of the oldest unbroken musical lineages in the world. As sons and disciples of the renowned Ustaad Naseeruddin Saami, they represent the 800-year-old oral tradition tracing back to Hazrat Amir Khusrau, the legendary mystic and musical innovator.
Steeped in the classical forms of Khayal and Qawwali, the Saami Brothers have dedicated their lives to the preservation of this sacred art. Their performances reflect a deep commitment to purity of form, emotional subtlety, and spiritual transmission, offering rare access to the original microtonal system of 49 shrutis — a sonic language nearly lost to the modern world.
Fluent in Urdu, Farsi, Punjabi, Sindhi, and more, their music is both devotional and universal — an offering of tolerance, unity, and divine remembrance. With roots that stretch across centuries and borders, the Saami Brothers are among the last living vessels of a tradition that continues to awaken hearts across the globe.
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Astralab is a cultural incubator dedicated to ancestral intelligence and sacred innovation. Rooted in the historic Granada Buildings — a timeless crossroads echoing the spirit of the old Silk Road — we host a vibrant array of cultural exchange workshops, concerts, art exhibitions, salons, and bazaars.
We serve as a community hub and sanctuary, where artists, healers, visionaries, and seekers gather to explore and co-create within the framework of the sacred economy. Astralab is a living invitation to remember, reconnect, and reimagine what becomes possible when ancestral wisdom meets modern creativity.