Evening Light opens the first chapter of the Raga Cycle, an eight-album series conceived by celebrated composer/pianist Michael Harrison, and featuring collaborations with a range of musicians from around the world. Each album corresponds to a different three-hour segment of the day and night, following the Indian raga time cycle.

This first installment, co-composed with vocalist Ina Filip (originally from Brazil and based in Québec), blends Indian classical ragas with lyrical and minimalist piano, multi-layered vocals, and electroacoustic textures. The album also features composer Elliot Cole on synthesizer, French composer Benoit Rolland on electro-acoustics, and Bangladeshi tabla virtuoso Mir Naqibul Islam.

Evening Light centers on the ragas Yaman and Bhupali, inhabiting the atmosphere of early evening — traditionally associated with expansiveness, luminosity, and quiet intensity. At its core is a finely shaped exchange between Harrison’s just intonation piano — the result of four decades of experience bridging Indian and Western classical traditions — and Filip’s voice.

Harrison’s just intonation tuning system means the intervals are pure and uncompromised, creating a more beautiful resonance than traditional equal-tempered pianos, and more faithfully matching the tuning of traditional Indian ragas. Filip’s vocal writing is grounded in the discipline of Dhrupad, yet expansive in scope, shaping layered architectures in an intricate interplay with the piano. Together their work melds the musical worlds of North India with those of Europe and America.