Ketan Bhatti (*1981) is a border crosser between different genres and cultural worlds. He moves between new, electronic and popular music and researches transcultural contemporary musical languages.

Ketan Bhatti was active in the German jazz and hip-hop scene at an early age and studied jazz drums at the University of the Arts in Berlin, where he has lived since 2002. His work ranges from contemporary chamber music, experimental music and dance theater, stage and film music, to electronic hip-hop-based productions, where subcultural currents, as well as the interaction of acoustic and electronic sound design play an essential role.

As a composer of theater music, he has worked regularly with his brother Vivan Bhatti since 2003 for the productions of director Nuran David Calis at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and Schauspiel Köln, among others.
Since 2009, the Bhatti brothers have produced and composed the music for the productions of the internationally touring Berlin breakdance group Flying Steps. Their joint production »Flying Bach«, for which they produced hip hop arrangements of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, was awarded the Echo Klassik Sonderpreis 2010.
Ketan and Vivan Bhatti’s music theater pieces are based on collaborations with authors such as Feridun Zaimoglu or Roland Schimmelpfennig, pose questions about integration and exclusion, and have been performed, for example, at the Staatsoper Hannover, the Neuköllner Oper or the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

In the field of dance theater, Ketan Bhatti collaborated with choreographers Davide Camplani (Sascha Walz & Guests) for an inclusive dance theater with people with Down Syndrome and with Kadir Amigo Memis for a piece about contemporary youth culture in socially deprived environments.

Following the desire for a contemporary transcultural musical language, Ketan Bhatti and his longtime musical companion Cymin Samawatie initiated the Trickster Orchestra in 2013, which is composed of instrumentalists from the Berliner Philharmoniker as well as musicians from Syria, Japan, China, Israel, Lebanon, Siberia, and Turkey, and made guest appearances at the Jazzfest Berlin 2015, among others. The ensemble translates the notion of big band and chamber orchestra into contemporary and hybrid, post-migrant forms characterized by cultural diversity and the breaking down of identities.

Ketan Bhatti's close collaboration with the Berlin-Iceland Ensemble Adapter most recently resulted in a series of world premieres at the 2015 Wien Modern Festival. The pieces found their way into the album »Nodding Terms«, released on Col Legno in 2018.

Bhatti looks back on numerous publications and international concerts, as well as scholarships and awards from the German Music Council, the Berlin Senate and the Goethe Institute.