Midday Mantra: Hardish Virk Presents Music From Mahendra Patel and Vibs Bhatia

We are pleased to welcome Hardish Virk to curate this event for our latest Midday Mantra series. Passionate about connecting communities with arts and cultural experiences, Hardish has worked on visual arts, dance, music, theatre, festivals (mela, carnival, street arts), museums and heritage projects across the country. He is delighted to present two thrilling musicians, Mahendra Patel and Vibs Bhatia, to be broadcast live on Sampad’s Facebook page.

Hardish has thirty years’ experience in arts marketing, PR and audience development, and advises on race equality, diversity and inclusion as well as consulting on policy and strategy. As an artist, Hardish has experience of acting, directing, producing and writing in relation to theatre and live events. He is author of the book Spirits Message and has been DJing since the late 1980s.

Mahendra Patel

Mahendra Patel is a full-time and hugely popular musician, drummer and percussionist, who specialises in playing by ear. He has been playing hand drums for over 30 years and mixes different styles from around the world. Having regularly hosted drumming workshops in and around Coventry, he has recently performed and started teaching in Iceland. Founder of Kadence Music, he has also presented at TEDxCoventry and has worked with Coventry UK City of Culture 2021.

See Mahendra perform below.

Vibs Bhatia

Vibs is an upcoming Brit-Indian artist, born and raised in Birmingham. She specialises in fusion music singing in Hindi, Punjabi and English alongside playing guitar. Being an avid singer in Hindi, Punjabi and English, she brings a unique dynamic to live music. Her most loved aspect of music is being able to keep her heritage and culture alive whilst collaborating with other artists. She is an exciting and versatile performer, singing in genres ranging from Bollywood, Qawaali, Indian Ghazal and Punjabi, to contemporary R&B, Hip-Hop and Alternative Folk/Indie. Currently, she is working on her very first EP and various collaborative projects with other South Asian creatives. By day, she passionately works in the Environment and Sustainability industry and is actively raising awareness of the climate emergency among South Asian communities.

In the UK, she has performed at several festivals and venues including Symphony Hall, Birmingham; Barclay Card Arena, Birmingham; Belgrade Theatre, Coventry; The Curtain, Shoreditch, London; Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London and New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, among others. Internationally, she has performed in Austra, Holland, Toronto, LA, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Hyderabad and New Delhi.

See Vibs perform below.

Image (from left to right): Mahendra Patel, Hardish Virk (photographer: Ayah-Ali Virk) and Vibhati Bhatia.