KARACHI: How often does one get to hear a fine, fine composition in raga jaunpuri composed by a westerner? Rarely. It happened on the penultimate day of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) Music Festival 2014 on Saturday night.

The evening kicked off to a good start with Napa student and guitarist Arsalan Pervaiz’s composition. The other musicians who performed with him were the renowned American pianist Kimball Gallagher, sitar player Nafees Ahmed and tabla player Waqas Gulab. It was a nice little piece, with each instrumentalist getting his fair share of solos.

It was followed by two distinguished tabla players’ — Ustad Bashir Ahmed and Ustad Ghulam Abbas — impressive jugulbandi led by Nafees Ahmed on sitar. Both ustads displayed their command of the instrument and accepted the challenge of a sort of playful competition with great alacrity. The audience listened to them with joy, and when they finished their act with the right climactic tempo, music lovers gave the three musicians a hearty round of applause.

Then came Kimball Gallagher on stage with vocalist Akbar Ali and Waqas Gulab (tabla). Gallagher told the audience that they’re going to play raga jaunpuri composed by Michael Harrison. The moment the tabla and piano joined, the vocalist in the tarana bandish, it became more than clear that it worked as a perfect counter piece for the preceding tabla jugulbandi. It had a soothing effect, especially when the piano followed the vocalist’s rendition of the scale. The pianist had termed it deep fusion, but it was steeped in eastern classical tradition.

After that Kimball Gallagher went back to his western classical roots and performed a few solo items. He began with three pieces by Chopin (etude) suggesting that the great composer was more accessible and lyrical. And he was dead right. It was a lovely, and learning, experience listening to the three items, especially the second one in which only one white key was used. The musician played the etude with eclat.

He then talked about his 88 Key Concert Tour for which he travels all across the globe, and in that connection presented a piece giving the flavour of a few countries. Giving the background to the next small piano recital, he said when he was in Afghanistan he met a 14-year-old boy, who had been learning piano for two years but was so good that some experts thought he’d been playing for seven years. The boy asked him to teach him to compose music, so he pressed a few keys representing letters in the young man’s name. The next day the boy came up with an entire tune using that lead.

The composition, when Gallagher played after telling the story, was pretty impressive. The American musician rounded off his (solo) stint with Chopin’s Polonaise Heroique. The last presentation of the evening was a collaboration between Napa’s singers and Gallagher.

The four-day music festival ended on Sunday night. Famous Italian Hathor Plectrum Quartet, a solo of Ustad Bashir Khan and Napa students’ collaboration with the Italian musicians were lined up for the day.`

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2014