Serving indigenous music
Pakistan’s Haider Rehman, a flute player and tabla nawaz, returns after performing at the World Music Festival.
LAHORE:
When most of his friends and fellows had an inclination to play the guitar or drums and do pop or rock music, Haider Rehman preferred listening to indigenous musical instruments and classical music.
Years have passed and Rehman is a banker now. However, no one who has ever watched him performing on stage has the slightest idea about it.
Rehman, a flute player and tabla nawaz, has recently returned from Dhaka after performing at the World Music Festival along with musicians from different parts of the world. He was the only Pakistani to be invited at the festival in which he played the flute with a London-based band Lokki Terra that features Cuban, English, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Swiss and Pakistani musicians.
“This was the first ever World Music Festival in Dhaka and I am very proud and happy that I represented Pakistan over there. The band Lokki Terra, that I am a member of, does fusion of different traditional music. Cuban, English, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Swiss play their traditional instruments and I play flute with them,” said Rehman.
“This is like bringing various civilisations together through music. The response that we got at the festival was amazing and people specially appreciated the wonders that a small and simple instrument like flute can do,” a joyous Rehman told The Express Tribune.
Other than the local Bangladeshi bands, bands from the UK, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America performed at the two-day festival in Dhaka from February 3 to February 5. Rehman said, “The types of music played at the festival were famous afro beats called Dele Sosimi, Latin funk music by Motimba, Regge by Sothsayers. Flute performance was considered a unique thing over there and I also played along Italian musicians where my performance was lauded by the audiences”.
Rehman, who has been accepted as a pupil of the renowned flutist Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia to further develop his love for eastern classical music, has been performing from a very young age. His first international performance was at the All World Ghazal Festival held in Malaysia in 1996. He has also performed at the International Dubai Festival, at the London Mela (before an audience of 60,000 in 2004), at Queen Elizabeth Hall, at Edinburgh Festival, at Belfast Ireland and at South Asian Games Dhaka in 2010.
Rehman is currently working with Laal,a band in Pakistan, other than regularly performing in All Pakistan Music Conference’s monthly concerts. Speaking about his future projects he said, “I am working on a pure eastern classical music album.
This will have the flute and tabla or just another classical music instrument. Here in Pakistan, there are very few albums of this kind but I want to release it within a year. I am also working on fusion of eastern and western music with some foreign bands. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahib did this the best way and I hope that I also make some contribution in this field”.
The flute player has so far worked with Bulgarian, Cuban, Brazilian and Japanese musicians. Rehman also founded the music club at Lahore’s famous Aitchison College and was the first ever music teacher at the institute.
“I want to play my role to flourish our indigenous music which is appreciated worldwide and will do my best for it,” he maintained.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2011.
When most of his friends and fellows had an inclination to play the guitar or drums and do pop or rock music, Haider Rehman preferred listening to indigenous musical instruments and classical music.
Years have passed and Rehman is a banker now. However, no one who has ever watched him performing on stage has the slightest idea about it.
Rehman, a flute player and tabla nawaz, has recently returned from Dhaka after performing at the World Music Festival along with musicians from different parts of the world. He was the only Pakistani to be invited at the festival in which he played the flute with a London-based band Lokki Terra that features Cuban, English, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Swiss and Pakistani musicians.
“This was the first ever World Music Festival in Dhaka and I am very proud and happy that I represented Pakistan over there. The band Lokki Terra, that I am a member of, does fusion of different traditional music. Cuban, English, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Swiss play their traditional instruments and I play flute with them,” said Rehman.
“This is like bringing various civilisations together through music. The response that we got at the festival was amazing and people specially appreciated the wonders that a small and simple instrument like flute can do,” a joyous Rehman told The Express Tribune.
Other than the local Bangladeshi bands, bands from the UK, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America performed at the two-day festival in Dhaka from February 3 to February 5. Rehman said, “The types of music played at the festival were famous afro beats called Dele Sosimi, Latin funk music by Motimba, Regge by Sothsayers. Flute performance was considered a unique thing over there and I also played along Italian musicians where my performance was lauded by the audiences”.
Rehman, who has been accepted as a pupil of the renowned flutist Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia to further develop his love for eastern classical music, has been performing from a very young age. His first international performance was at the All World Ghazal Festival held in Malaysia in 1996. He has also performed at the International Dubai Festival, at the London Mela (before an audience of 60,000 in 2004), at Queen Elizabeth Hall, at Edinburgh Festival, at Belfast Ireland and at South Asian Games Dhaka in 2010.
Rehman is currently working with Laal,a band in Pakistan, other than regularly performing in All Pakistan Music Conference’s monthly concerts. Speaking about his future projects he said, “I am working on a pure eastern classical music album.
This will have the flute and tabla or just another classical music instrument. Here in Pakistan, there are very few albums of this kind but I want to release it within a year. I am also working on fusion of eastern and western music with some foreign bands. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahib did this the best way and I hope that I also make some contribution in this field”.
The flute player has so far worked with Bulgarian, Cuban, Brazilian and Japanese musicians. Rehman also founded the music club at Lahore’s famous Aitchison College and was the first ever music teacher at the institute.
“I want to play my role to flourish our indigenous music which is appreciated worldwide and will do my best for it,” he maintained.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2011.