KARACHI: It was such a delight for music lovers’ auditory and visual senses to watch and listen to the colourful Punjab Brass Band play two soulful tunes as the 12th edition of the two-day annual All Pakistan Music Conference began on Friday evening on the lawns of the National Academy of Performing Arts.

It was an intelligent move on the part of the organisers to shuffle the original programme a bit and request the brass band to start off proceedings. The group, ably led by Jaffer Hussain Randhawa, first performed a classical sehra. It was pretty special to listen to the shehnai the way Hussain played it. He made the instrument wail in a way as if it was musically interpreting tears of joy. It was understandable because of the nature of the tune.

The second piece that the band did was raga shahana that was no less impressive. The sound of the brass instruments joined in by the gentle roll of the drums was something that Karachi’s music buffs seldom lend an ear to.

The band was followed by the young sitar player Waqas Hussain. He presented raga patdeep. The youngster, who has no dearth of talent, initially had some tuning issues, but later controlled the situation well and played the composition with youthful exuberance. He was quite good with the pakad of the raga. Waqas was accompanied by Irfan (tabla).

The bansuri playing team of brothers Abid Ali and Sajid Ali was then introduced by the hosts, informing the audience that while the former had played with the likes of Mehdi Hasan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Noorjehan, the latter had had his contributions to this year’s Coke Studio. And the brothers lived up to their reputation. They presented raga jait that belongs to the marwa thaat or group. The legendary bansuri player Hariparsad Chaurasia is also fond of playing the jait, perhaps which was why the Ali brothers chose to perform it. They did a good job. The audience, which trickled into the arena in a decent number as the evening wore on, enjoyed their stint on stage.

Next up was Ustad Fateh Ali Kamalvi of the Patiala Gharana. He was asked to do three bits: the first one was a presentation of raga rageshwari, then a thumri and finally a kaafi.

The last two performers on the programme list were Ustad Shafqat Salamat Ali and Ustad Naseeurddin Saami.

Published in Dawn March 7th, 2015

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