With summers on its peak, French institutions and their partners in Pakistan again celebrated the season with concerts in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.
Launched in 1982 by the French ministry for culture, the World Music Day (Fête de la Musique) is marked in more than hundred countries. Created to share the joy and humanity of musical creations with all, the idea is to provide free access to bands and music groups everywhere.
This year, the Caravan Quartet came especially from France to spread a good vibe and some gipsy jazz! After presenting their new concert, full of exclusive musical surprises, at the National Library of Islamabad on Tuesday, 25th, they performed in Lahore too in collaboration with German musicians at Rafi Peer Cultural Complex on Wednesday last. The music concert was organised by French and German cultural centers.
The Merhmet Ergin Quartet, led by a Turkish-German artiste, toured Pakistan on the invitation of the Alliance Francaise in Lahore and Karachi, the Goethe Institute, Karachi and the Annemarie Schimmel Haus Institute, Lahore. They delighted the audience with their energy.
The Caravan Quartet is a gipsy jazz band with more than 300 concerts to their credit. Film music, theatre and other art projects have enabled them to explore and innovate. All the four musicians -- Robin Ensina, Olivier Lorang, Mathias Levy and Samuel Strouk -- started music as children and bring their very personal point of view to the band.
Meanwhile, City FM89 radio also organised, in partnership with the Alliance Francaise, Lahore and Karachi, gigantic events to celebrate the World Music Day. It gave the opportunity to Pakistani artistes, famous and freshly launched, to present their work to cheered audiences.
In this connection City FM89 hosted a musical concert in Lahore at the Ali Auditorium, Ali Institute of Education, Ferozepur Road, on June 22.
Since 2007 City FM89’s World Music Day concert has enjoyed enormous success with bands such as Mauj, ADP, Mole, Farhad Hamayun from Overload, Symt and many more.
This year it has once again invited popular as well as underground musicians to help Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad celebrate the World Music Day. Different institutions, bands and individuals performed on the occasion.
LUMS Music Society; one of the oldest student-run music bodies in Pakistan was also one of the participants. Parize Azhar was one of the artistes who performed at the Ali Auditorium. Hailing from Lahore Grammar School, Parizae took LUMS Music Festival by storm by winning in the ‘Western Individual Singing Category’. She was joined on stage with her fellow Grammarians, Mina Khan and Fatima Raheel.
Keeray Makoray, a progressive rock band from Lahore that got noticed after their performance at a tribute night to the Beatles at LGS, also showed their mettle.
The band members include Altamash Sever (vocals), Syed Misbahuddin (lead guitarist), Luke Azariah (guitarist), Ramay brothers (drums) and Zain Peerzada (bass).
Purple Void -- the band that call their genre a mix of Sufi Blues, Classical rock and Blues were also there to perform. Band membersincluded Nabil Shahzad and Usama Daood (guitars & instruments) and Zamad Baig (vocals). Zamad has performed alongside some big names of Pakistani music industry such as Ali Azmat and Omran Shafique.
Topi Drama was the Punjabi rock band comprising Sohail Qureshi (vocals), Arafat Mazhar (guitar) and Kenny Zeerick (drums). The band released their first song “Inquilab” in January 2013. The song is about the revolution which people dream of. “Khoon” is the band’s latest song released in February 2013.
The Pirzadas from Rafi Peer Theatre Complex, Raiwind Road, have urged Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to name the Alhamra Cultural Complex, Qadhafi Stadium, after late Faizan Pirzada.
A friend in the family told this scribe the request was made when the chief minister went to Pirzadas’s residence on Raiwind Road on Faizan’s death.
However, no progress has been made on it since then. He said the demand carried weight as Pirzadas have so far held 54 small and big national and international festivals in Pakistan, especially in Lahore, including the World Performing Arts Festival used to be participated every year by artistes from some 12 to 14 countries. Most of these festivals were held at the Alhamra Cultural Complex.
