From Assam to Abbey Road: How this Indian musician is taking his unique talent across the world

Joi Barua in his Bandra studio. Pic/Shadab Khan

Meeting musician Joi Barua in his studio means you get to listen to music he is currently making, tracks he's listening to on loop and chatter about life and its philosophies.

Last week, we caught up with the artiste for a very special update. His voice and melodies are part of Cosmic Rhapsody, the second part of The Lim Trilogy, a three-part musical and visual storytelling project which explores companionship, space and the origins of matter through music, animation, and science.

The project, spearheaded by Dr Susan Lim, who in her medical career spanning over 30 years pioneered liver transplantation in Asia, comprises songs, animation, and concertos such as Fantasy of Companionship (2021), Cosmic Rhapsody (2026), and Symphony of Oceans (unreleased).

Dr Susan Lim

The song in Cosmic Rhapsody titled Star among the Cosmic Clouds is about a star that is going down. Barua composed this song to Dr Lim's lyrics after his father's death. "I wrote it in Assam sitting at my father's desk. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra," he tells us.

The first part of the trilogy focuses on companionship and loneliness. "As people become increasingly isolated, it asks: Can we live a life with artificial companions? The story follows ALAN, an AI-embodied plush inanimate who enters the life of its human companion, Christina," Dr Lim tells us.

Cosmic Rhapsody, sees the partnership of human and inanimate set out to space, driven by environmental challenges on Earth, in search of solutions in cosmic dust that may help save the planet. "In this fictional narrative, they encounter an exploding star, a supernova, yielding purple cosmic dust that falls back to Earth as confetti, soaking up the CO2 and impurities, narrated through the song Confetti Storm," Lim says.

"I think every complicated story can also be told simply. If it cannot be told simply it means you haven't understood it. I call this project The Ark of ALAN. Susan has built an entire universe with various talents from around the world," Joi adds.

Ahead of the Space Week on October 2, the song Teleportation from the finale of LIM I, recorded at Abbey Road in April with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrating quantum entanglement, was also released in two versions: one main English version by Britain's Got Talent superstar Tom Ball, and a separate version in Assamese by Barua, who composed the song to Susan's lyrics.

The news only gets bigger. Cosmic Rhapsody celebrates its North American Premiere at the Hollywood Bowl in July 2027, a month apart from NASA's COSI mission to board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in August 2027, led by Principal Investigator John Tomsick.

Last year, Lim and her team presented Cosmic Rhapsody to the leadership of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. "The screening revealed how intimately the musical story of star evolution aligned with the upcoming NASA mission. Human striving drives both, the imagination of scientists to build instruments capable of peering across light-years, and artistes to create works that stirs human spirit," Dr Susan Lim told us via email.

The mission will study the gamma-ray sky to trace the radioactive glow of stellar explosions and map where the elements of the periodic table are forged across our galaxy. "The iron in our blood, calcium in our bones and magnesium in our cells were all forged in stellar furnaces," says Dr Lim, adding, "We are quite literally stardust."

Dr Lim met Barua at an INK Conference in Singapore where she spoke on the frontiers in medicine. She heard Barua present Rhaba, an Assamese song inspired by the story of Assamese revolutionary and cultural icon Bishnu Prasad Rabha, created in collaboration with American saxophonist George Brooks, and knew she wanted to work with him. "While working on the songs, I realised that every bit of that endeavour is aimed at trying to find a solution. And then that whole endeavour requires a bigger purpose. It's a privilege to be part of this," says Barua, adding that Mumbai and Bollywood gave his career a platform.

"When you make music for movies, it has a commercial goal post but when you do your own music, it feels personal and their collective purpose. I will continue doing good projects and people will find me," says Barua, who has been associated with Bollywood projects including Dev D, Udaan and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. "The ultimate message we leave with viewers is that no matter how far we push into artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, or deep-space exploration, empathy and love remain the universal currency," Lim signs off.