Set to kick off on January 25, the college has invited artists from diverse genres to perform in the three-day festival. The fest will see performances by classical greats including flautist Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia and vocalist Pt Sanjeev Abhyankar, jamming it with western gurus like Louiz Banks (keyboard) and Karl Peters (guitar) and fusion artists Shankar Mahadevan (vocals) and Shivamani (percussion) among others.

“Every year, Janfest tries to do something different,” said Sonal Gupta, a FYBA student and a member of the college’s Indian Music Group (IMG) committee. She added, “This time, we wanted to explore the delightful genre where Indian classical meets western music. To discover the similarities between the two was the theme.”

Organised by the IMG—a students’ group to promote classical music tradition in the college—Janfest since the beginning has always been a big hit among the artists. Promoting the festival at the college's multimedia room -a room “whose walls had heard so much music” were legends like Chaurasia, classical vocalist Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Banks, Peters and mridangam artist Sridhar Parthasarthy.

Chaurasia, who confessed to his relationship with Xavier's years before the Janfest kicked off in the 70s said that he has always loved and respected being associated with the college. “I have involved myself with several other colleges in India, but at Janfest I find the students very interested in music. In fact, today, the students are even more evolved — they don’t just understand and care about the music, but also the artists. Other colleges have a lot to learn from Janfest.”