Music conference ends tunefully
By Peerzada Salman
KARACHI: The third and final day of the classical music conference organised by the Music Society IBA in collaboration with the Rauf Ansari Foundation to celebrate the All Pakistan Music Conference’s 50th anniversary ended on a high note at the Arts Council Karachi on Thursday.
An IBA band called RPG, popular amongst its peers, performed first. It presented an original composition and band members Mehdi Maloof (vocals, guitar, flute), Sohaib Ahmed (keyboard) and Shahzeb Hasan (darbuka) earned a decent applause from the crowd who had by then started to trickle into the venue.
The young musical group was followed by Akhtar Husain who is a known sarangi nawaz. His rendition of raag andeshveri was neatly done. He handled the ascending and descending notes well. Akhtar Husain was joined on stage by Asif Ali (tabla). The young tabla player is one to watch out for. His unusual left-handed style of playing the instrument with tremendous dexterity, which included note-perfect timing without missing a beat, made the audience clap for him wholeheartedly.
Then it was known singer Ijaz Qaiser’s turn to sing a few ghazals. He started off with Shad Azeemabadi’s Tamannaon mein uljhaya gaya hoon and carried on with relatively unheard ghazals Sada ye kis ki thi, Aankh barsi terey naam per, Muddatein ho gaeen hain chup rehtey and Dhoom thi apni parsai ki. Ijaz Qaiser managed the poetic flavour of the compositions decently sans much ornamentation.
But what lifted the musical evening to a higher level of artistic finesse combined with popular appeal was sarod player Asad Qizilbash’s remarkable recital. His raag malkons in 10 and 16-beat cycles proved to be an audio-visual delight. Accompanied by Shabbir Husain on the tabla, Asad Qizilbash (whose spiritual guru is Ustad Amjad Ali Khan) began by informing the audience about the sarod and then played with passion, alacrity and control.
Alia Rasheed who is known for her dhrupad style of singing was next. She presented two classical pieces, one of which was a bhajan by Kabirdas in khamaj. Alia Rasheed is visually impaired but has a consuming passion for music.
The last act of the conference was Shafqat Salamat Ali’s performance. The classical musician hails from the famous Shaam Chaurasi gharana and is the son of the legendary Ustad Salamat Ali. He performed raag rageshri in jhaptal and tintal at the request of one of the organisers. His pure rendition of the raag was very well-received by music buffs, most of whom belonged to the younger generation. It’s a healthy sign.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/20/2010
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