Musical evening: Lacklustre performances fail to impress at PNCA

A rendition of ghazals and geet made the audience nostalgic for singers of yore.

ISLAMABAD:

With Moharram less than two weeks away, musical evenings are set to become a nightly feature at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts. The audience on Friday was treated to a rendition of ghazals and geet performed by popular singers, some of whom failed to live up to expectation.

The musical night took off with Nida Faiz’s rendition of Reshma’s “Dasht-e-Tanhai”. Faiz, who began her career from Radio Pakistan, Lahore is now a seasoned singer in her own right and has recently released an album titled “Chanda”.

Due to a sore throat, however, Faiz failed to do justice to her songs. Her low-key performance was made up for by Altaf Mehdi, a student of Pervaiz Mehdi, who had come from Mandi Bahauddin to perform. He sang “Gaye dinon ka suragh leh kar,” a song by Nisar Qadri, and “Toot jaye na barham.” With Mehdi’s performance, the audience settled into the musical vibe.

As Gulshan Jahan came on stage to perform some of Noor Jehan’s numbers, Jahan told the audience of her adoration of Noor Jehan and her songs. “I try my best to follow her example,” she said.

She went on to sing Nasir Qadri’s “Dil dharaknay ka sabab yaad aya” and ended with Reshma’s “Nai ladga dil mera,” which had the audience cheering on her final notes. However, many in the audience felt that some of the performances were lacklustre. “These are seasoned players, I attend their performances often but today I feel they were a little off their game,” said one of the guests in the audience.

However, the last entrant, Shaukat Mansoor who is a well-known singer of the Shaam Churasi tradition and a student of Ustad Salamat Ali Khan had everyone forget about the previous low-key performances. Popular for his folk songs, geet and ghazals, the crowd cheered and some even whistled as he sang, ending the musical evening with “Thehar jao ke hayrani toh jaye”.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2012.