Lahore Music Meet kicks off today

Pakistan’s music artists join hands to celebrate music at Alhamra Art Centre

LAHORE: A two-day festival dedicated to bringing together musical minds from across Pakistan for celebration as well as critique of music begins today at the Alhamra Art Centre in Lahore.

Pakistan’s first-ever music symposium Music Meet is all set to stage its third edition of The Lahore Music Meet (LMM17), featuring some of the country’s leading music artists such as Sajjad Ali, Ali Azmat, Meesha Shafi, Momina Mustehsan, Arshad Mahmud, Haniya Aslam and Javed Bashir to name a few.

Speaking about the event, festival directors Natasha Noorani and Zahra Paracha said they had managed to rope in a collection of artists, who capture some of the major soundscapes in Pakistan today, to speak and perform at the festival.

The LMM, they said, is a well-established, one of its kind platform for all activities pertaining to music performance, enterprise, education and academia with the ultimate goal of encouraging talents and fostering relationships between individuals within the music fraternity.

“By providing such a platform once every year, the LMM hopes to revitalise the reputation and perception of music within the country and abroad,” Zahra said.

The event is open to the general public and will be headlined by award-winning artist Slowspin and indie singer-songwriter Ali Suhail on day one with Pakistan’s leading indie band Poor Rich Boy and classical music maestro Javed Bashir’s performance scheduled for day two as part of the festival’s evening showcase.

Starting from 1:30pm, the event will feature a diversity of artists who encapsulate various musical spectrums of Pakistan that include Hathi, Abdulah Siddiqui, Ehlerock, Janoobi Khargosh, Kashmir, Jaubi, Keeray Makoray, Patari Tabeer, Saakin, Wooly and The Uke, Shajie, Shorbanoor, Wisdom Salad, Tonight Us, Noah’s Heark, Mehdi Maloof and Mohammad Aizaz.

According to the organisers, the Lahore Music Meet received over 250 applications from across the country for live performance sessions which were then shortlisted by co-founders Natasha and Paracha.

LMM17 will also be hosting an audiovisual exhibition titled ‘Rang Saazi’. Co-curated by Alifiyah Imani and Azka Shahid, this curated showcase will feature contemporary visual artists who have broadly explored and interpreted music as a subject and subculture and its influence as an integral part of our collective, historical and cultural identities.

LMM publicist Zubair Malick said that based on the Punjab government and security advisory committee’s instructions, the festival schedule had to be readjusted for relocating all outdoor activities to indoor locations within Alhamra as opposed to what was initially planned.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2017.