KARACHI: The four-day 12th Tehzeeb Festival, which began online on Friday evening, continued on Sunday. Given the situation arising out of the pandemic, this time around the event is titled ‘Music in Covid Times’.

Giving details of this year’s edition before the formal start of the show, Sharif Awan who runs the festival said due to the fact that the prgoramme could not be held physically in front of a live audience, the organisers thought to take the event to the national level and prerecord material from different parts of the country.

The first city that they went for the recording was Islamabad (which went on air on the opening day). The next town was Lahore followed lastly by Karachi where artists from Sindh and Balochistan put their talent on display.

Mr Awan said that in total 35 performers and 28 accompaniments took part in the festival whose performances lasted four days. On the inaugural day, seven artists [from Islamabad] were recorded. After that he unveiled the lineup for the day.

The concert began with Bilal Khan’s rendition of raga yaman on rubab. A performance of Khattak dance was added to his instrumental.

Then came the young vocalist Zainul Abideen, who is learning khayal gaeki from Ustad Raza Ali Khan, and santoor player Ali Raza. Zainul Abideen presented a khayal in raga shudh sarang, while Raza played raga ahir bhairav.

The fourth artist was sarangi player Dr Taimoor Khan who played raga ahir lalit.

Next up was the harmonium player Shahbaz Ali. He entertained the online audience with raga maru.

Rais Ahmed Khan, the violinist, then played a thumri ‘Naina morey taras gaey’ followed by another tune in the notes from raga jaunpuri.

Finally, Babar and Javed Niazi, sons of the legendary folk singer Tufail Niazi, sang a kafi, composed by their late father, and a folk song.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd , 2021