Call music the universal language, and everybody nods their heads. Yet the grammar of classical Indian music differs so thoroughly from the grammar of classical music in the European tradition as to render the two “dialects” mutually unintelligible. (This example is far from unique.) Even so, the mutual fascination is potent, and artists keep trying to bridge the divide. Olivier Messiaen, who made a deep study of Indian scales and rhythms, conceived his Turangalîla-Symphonie (1949) in such a spirit. In the late 1960s, the Beatles plunged into Transcendental Meditation at the feet of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with profound implications for the pop world. Around the same time, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar—each a legend in his own right—communed in East-meets-West concerts documented in a cult album. And the beat goes on. In San Francisco this fall, the composer Jack Perla, the Del Sol String Quartet, and the Indian masters Alam Khan, Arjun K. Verma, and Nilan Chaudhuri embark on their own form of the quest. —Matthew Gurewitsch