KARACHI: It was so heartening to see a 97-year-old woman named Shirin Rajab Ali come to see a musical concert titled ‘Earthsong’ at the World Culture Festival (WCF 2026) on Saturday evening. One of the reasons for her presence in the Arts Council of Pakistan’s Auditorium No 1 was that her grandson, Dr Rizwan Jagani, was to play music. Talking to Dawn, Ms Ali said she attended the festival last year as well. Isn’t that lovely!

The gig began when the Jagani-Soltow Duo representing America appeared on stage. The pair — Dr Jagani and Steven Edward Soltow — plays viola and piano. And their instrumentation was top-notch. They played with a lot of control and at the same time did not compromise on the flair aspect of the compositions.

They started off with a piece that in a way introduced themselves and their musical talent to the audience in a nice way. It was a gentle track, and the viola-piano combination was heartily appreciated by the discerning music listeners.

Next up was a piece that had three variations and the musicians did great justice to it. Their more than half-an-hour stint on stage was, again, very well received.

The musicians that were to follow them on the programme list were Maria Jose (Guatemala) and Usman Anees (Pakistan).

Dance Trance

Dancing skills shown by groups of young dancers along with the demonstration of contemporary dance by American artist Valerie Green with the council’s dance students attracted the attention of a good number of art lovers.

The segment kicked off with Orbit Dance Battle auditions adjudicated by Nighat Chaudhry, Mani Chao and Lucas.

Norway’s Naveed Rizwani expertly hosted the show and kept the young dance aspirants engaged. He invited everyone to sit in a circle because “we’re all united in a circle today”.

He said, “In the hip-hop world, we call this a cypher. It is 360 degrees of knowledge. A great hip-hop artist once said, ‘to be hip, is to be intelligent, and hop is the movement’, that’s why in our culture hip-hop is intelligent movement.”

The DJ of the show, Katherine, did a tremendous job by playing music that suited the occasion.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2026