National Centre for the Performing Arts

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National Centre for the Performing Arts

• Mumbai's premier cultural venue, the National
  Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) boasts both
  an eclectic programme of events and a wide range
  of performance spaces from the 285-capacity
  black-box Experimental Theatre to the regal
  Jamshed Bhabha Theatre. Considered the hub of
  western classical music in the city, the NCPA
  founded the Symphony Orchestra of India in 2006.
  Under the directorship of Kazakh violinist Marat
  Bisengaliev, the SOI stages two sets of
  "celebrity" concerts featuring such big-ticket
  names as Karl Jenkins and Tamas Vasary every
  February and September. The NCPA is perhaps even
  better known for its Indian classical music
  recitals, and in addition to weekly concerts it
  also hosts a number of annual festivals,
  including Aadi Anant every January and Bandish
  every July. Their most recent success, however,
  is the Sufi music festival, Sama'a, held in
  November.

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Bonobo

• Ever since hipster hangout Zenzi shut last
  October, this Bandra bar and restaurant has
  become the den of choice for the city's art set.
  Fridays and Saturdays are the gig nights here,
  and past performers have included genre-hopping
  multi-instrumentalist Shri and British beatboxer
  Testament. Bonobo is also home to Wobble, a
  monthly night of "bass heavy" sounds like
  drum'n'bass and dubstep, which has featured such
  Indian electronica heavyweights as Bandish
  Projekt and BREED. The air-conditioned
  performance room can only hold about 80 people,
  which means you're likely to find the majority of
  the crowd sipping on cocktails around the
  mushroom-shaped tables in the rooftop bar. It's
  located somewhat incongruously in a lemon-yellow
  building, alongside a KFC. 

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Hard Rock Café

• ocated in a former mill, the Mumbai outpost of
  the US chain of resto-bars has a mixed reputation
  among the city's musicians. In the first couple
  of years after opening, in 2006, indie rock acts
  were often asked to include a stipulated number
  of cover songs in their set lists. These days,
  Hard Rock Café, which hosts gigs every Tuesday
  and Thursday night, sticks mostly to cover bands,
  with a couple of dates a month spared for indie
  groups. Skip these gigs, and come here only for
  the ticketed events, when one of the seating
  areas is cleared

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• to make room for a larger stage, for performances
  by Indian indie icons (folk-fusion veterans
  Indian Ocean, electro-rock superstars Pentagram),
  international chart toppers (Wyclef Jean, Jay
  Sean) or club-packing DJs (Bob Sinclair, Paul van
  Dyk). Be warned, though the waiters break into a
  synchronised jig every time the Village People's
  "YMCA" comes on.

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Shanmukhananda Auditorium

• On most weekends, the 60-year-old Sri
  Shanmukhananda Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi
  Auditorium is where you head to catch a
  performance of Carnatic (or South Indian
  classical) music. However, Mumbai's largest
  auditorium with a seating capacity of 2,763
  spread over three floors is also a perennially
  popular venue for the city's biggest gigs. In the
  past couple of months, master percussionist
  Trilok Gurtu and Grammy-winning mohan veena
  player Vishwa Mohan Bhatt have staged
  performances here. Shanmukhananda also hosts the
  annual tribute concert that tabla maestro Zakir
  Hussain organises every year in memory of his
  father, Allah Rakha Khan, on 3 February. A
  red-letter date in the city's concert calendar,
  the event has featured some of the world's finest
  Indian classical, jazz and fusion music talent.