May 05, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1429

KARACHI, May 4: It’s not an everyday occurrence in Karachi that a foreign woman pianist wearing shalwar-kameez plays the tunes of legendary western composers such as Mozart and Chopin.

Tashkent-born Ayesha Tariq did exactly that in an impressive performance with the Karachi Vocal Ensemble at the Alliance Francaise on Saturday night.

Her virtuosity was most prominent in Chopin’s technically demanding pieces. In particular, her rendition of the Scherzo No 1, where the key changes from major to minor, was notable. Another solo piano work, Etude No 4, has a very quick tempo in continuous sixteenth notes and is known to be more difficult to play than any other of Chopin’s etudes. Ayesha, however, managed to play it effortlessly, including the section where the key signature C-sharp minor leads to complex finger positioning.

The conductor of the ensemble, Ayesha Fiazuddin, stated that she discovered the talented pianist “by chance” in 2006, adding that she had been living in the city since 1995 with her Pakistani husband and children.

The programme consisted of 12 numbers and alternated between solo and group performances. The set included compositions by J. Martini and F. Liszt.

Ayesha Fiazuddin also gave a solo performance and sang Habanera, an aria from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. She had an interesting command over her voice and sounded cheerful in singing the French number, whose opening lines are quand je vous aimerai? Ma foi, je ne sais pas, peut-ętre jamais, peut-ętre demain, translated as: “When will I love you? Good lord, I don’t know, maybe never, maybe tomorrow.”

A senior member of the ensemble sang the melancholic tune None But the Lonely Heart accompanied by Japanese pianist Hiroko Yasunori. The song’s lyrics are based on Goethe’s poem.

Upcoming tabla player Alan Simon joined the 12-member vocal ensemble conducted by Ms Fiazuddin on two tracks, Veris Leta Facies (or the ‘Happiness of Spring’ from Carmina Burana by C. Orff) and Tourdion. He didn’t get any space to improvise and played a simple role of giving beats to the numbers.

Conductor Ayesha said the young tabla player was included at the last minute for the purpose of adding an “eastern touch” to the performance. However, some western classical purists in the audience did not appreciate the move and argued that the performance should have been strictly in the spirit of renaissance music and not fusion-based.

The 200-year old French song Plaisir d’Amour or the ‘Joys of Love’ and Gnomenreigen were some of the other tracks performed during the night.

The Karachi Vocal Ensemble comprises a diverse set of people based in Karachi with different professions and nationalities, including Swiss, Japanese, Korean, British and Pakistanis. Even though none of the members are professional performers or musicians, all have had training in music and pursue it as a hobby. They perform together only once or twice a year and have been putting up shows since 2004.