Pakistan’s Sitar, Tabla concert mesmerizes audience at Asia- Europe cultural festival in Brussels

ISLAMABAD, Oct 25 (APP):Embassy of Pakistan in Brussels, as part of the country’s participation in Asia – Europe Cultural Festival taking place in connection with 12th Asia – Europe Summit held in the Belgian capital from October 18 to 19, organized a Sitar and Tabla concert at Belgium’s prestigious International Centre of Fine Arts and Music Bozar.
In line with the theme of festival, Asia- Europe connectivity, two European artists performed Pakistani music and earned huge applause from large number of audience including ambassadors of various countries and foreign and Belgian audience from different walks of life, a message received here Thursday said.
Arnaud Eurina French musician who plays Sitar and Tabla, artist Carlo Strazzante a Belgian national of Italian descend, presented classical, Sufi and folk tunes. Ms. Sarah Hashmi, a master’s student in Cultural Studies at the KU Leuven University introduced the theme of the programme, the musicians and background of every tune played by the artists.
The concert was opened with pure classical composition by Arnaud based on Raag Multani deriving its name from Multan, the land of Sufis.
The repertoire included rendition of Raag Bageshri, a classical raga, said to have been first sung by Mian Tansen, the celebrated court singer of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century.
The tunes of qawwalis ‘Mein Nijaam Se Naina Laga Ayi’ and ‘Nit Khair Mangan Sonya Mein Teri’ and folk tunes of ‘Lang Aa Ja Paton Chana Da Yaar’and‘Damadam Mast Qalandar’, were also played.
The audience were spell bound by the tunes and expressed applause for the mastery of skills of European artists playing Pakistani music. A professor of music at KU Leuven University who attended the evening expressed interest in forging collaboration between Pakistani and Belgian music.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Belgium, the European Union and Luxembourg Mrs. Naghmana Alamgir Hashmi said that Embassy of Pakistan in Brussels was making every possible effort to promote soft image of Pakistan and to introduce Pakistani culture and traditions in Brussels which was centre of European Union and had big presence of all the nationalities