Seasoned musicians and prodigies enthral audience at music conference

Offering several instrumental and vocal performances of the Indian classical music as well as screenings of films based on arts, the three-day 22nd Annual Festival of the All Pakistan Music Conference Karachi concluded on Sunday.

The conference was held at the National Museum of Pakistan’s auditorium with free entrance. The event is normally held in the first quarter of the year but it was organised a little late this year, in the month of April, probably due to Ramazan.

The lawn of the National Museum blossomed with distinguished artistes, including seasoned musicians as well as prodigies. The notable participants included sitarist Ustad Ashraf Sharif Khan, Muslim Shaggan, who is carrying forward the torch of his illustrious grandfather Ghulam Hassan Shaggan, and Ustad Fateh Ali Khan from Hyderabad, who is among the most respected classical music artistes of Pakistan.

The screening of Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (The Music Room) on Saturday was one of the interesting offerings of the conference. Music is a major theme of the film, due to which it was selected to be screened. Like other Ray’s films, Jalsaghar is in Bengali, so the audience had to rely on subtitles to understand the dialogues.

It was followed by a lovely rendition of Raag Jhinjhoti on Sarod by Muzamil Akmal Qadri, the only Sarod player in the country who learnt the instrument from Indian teachers through the internet. The melancholic sound of Sarod resonated perfectly with the romantic notes of Jhinjhoti.

Muzamil’s father Ustad Akmal Qadri, who is a renowned flautist and was scheduled to perform on the Bansuri on Sunday, accompanied his son on the harmonium. The Sarod was followed by a Khayal performance by vocalist Salman Haider, who had delighted the audience the previous year by rendering a Khayal in Bhairavi, which is not traditionally sung in the Khayal form. This time he chose Raag Darbari (also called Darbari Kanada), perhaps to conform to the conference’s theme ‘Veer Rang’.

The next item was an interesting one: a Khayal rendered in a Dhrupad style. The performers were Saqib Ali and Qasim Ali, who chose to sing Khayal of Puriya Dhanasree in the Lahar Bani style of Dhrupad singing.

The performances on Sunday started with Khayal in Puriya Kalyan performed by the young Izzat Fateh Ali Khan, extremely talented son of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan who would conclude the conference later.

The calmness of Kalyan mingled with the uneasiness of Puriya came out beautifully in the Khayal. The young artiste was also not in a hurry. Unlike some other performances, he sang the Alaap for a few minutes before starting the Vilambit part.

Aizaz Sohail, a vocalist from Lahore, was the next to perform. It was announced that among other teachers, he had taken classes from Pundit Ajoy Chakrabarty from India, and also learnt the Carnatic classical music.

He meticulously performed Bihag. The Alaap was short, but perhaps it was due to the time constraint, as he then sang the raag in Nilambit, Madhya and Drut tempos. It is not often one hears the exploration of a raag in three tempos. Sohail sang Bihag melodiously. Even his Taan sounded melodious. He received well-deserved applause.

Veer Rang

Initially, the theme ‘Veer Rang: the many colours of Veer Rasa’ set for the conference did not strike a chord with me. After all, not many would like to hear a raag for feeling the Veer Rasa.

Rasa or Ras in the context of Indian aesthetics means emotion that is carried by an art form like painting, music or theatre. Veer Rasa means emotions and feelings associated with courage and chivalry.

The art of music is limited in the sense that it can evoke only limited emotions. For example, the emotions of laughter, horror or surprise are not expected to be evoked by a raag performance, but they can be portrayed through theatre and dance.

Interestingly, the aesthetic theories describing the Indian classical music accept Veer Rasa as one of the emotions that can be portrayed through music. One of the most popular raag, Malkauns, is generally associated with the Veer Rasa depicting bravery, courage, honour and their allied themes.

However, as in the art of painting, where a particular colour can symbolise entirely different ideas and emotions in different artworks (like in the Indian context, red may symbolise wedding, love and joy in some artwork while in another artwork the same colour could depict rage, violence and bloodshed), a raag may be interpreted and explored by different performers, who may derive entirely different Rasa from the same raag.

In his famous Raag Mala, Khwaja Khursheed Anwar describes Marwa as a raag of loneliness and sorrow, but in a documentary currently available on YouTube, the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan says Marwa embodies Veer Rasa. He then goes on to describe how some individual Sur of Marwa represents different postures of a warrior in a battlefield.

So, basing the entire three-day conference on Veer Rasa did not sound appealing to me, as this particular emotion might be the least sought-after emotion by those wanting to listen to classical music.

However, upon attending the conference, it appeared that the theme was not strictly followed. For instance, a romantic Raag like Jhinjhoti was also performed, which is not generally associated with the Veer Rasa.

The Sarod player who performed Jhinjhoti told me that he tried to play the raag in a somewhat aggressive manner so that his performance may conform to the theme ‘Veer Rang’. A musician participating in the conference had an interesting take on the theme. He said it must not be expected that all the performances at the event would be based on Veer Rang.

However, he supported the theme, saying that using terminologies like Veer Rasa in the theme provokes curiosity in people, who then ask about them and learn about these theoretical ideas of classical music. In that sense, he pointed out, setting the theme of Veer Rang was a useful move.