Music - 4

From being heralded as Asia’s biggest rock act that redefined Sufi rock, Junoon has come a long way. The band that was applauded by U2′s Bono for their efforts at propagating world peace, is finally taking a break, what with all its members concentrating on their solo careers. Salman Ahmed shifted base to USA as [...]

German rock group ‘Ikarus’ and French rock band ‘Lunatic Age’ are currently in town to participate in a Mega Rock Festival marking International Music Day. Members of both rock groups shared their feelings and experiences with ‘The News’ Tuesday. ‘Lunatic Age,’ the French rock band, finds its visit “exciting and exotic”. For ‘Ikarus,’ the German [...]

Pakistan’s hottest rock act Junoon will be part of the musical efforts at relieving the poorest countries of the yoke of debts. A huge musical rally ‘Live 8′ has been planned prior to that on July 2 to convince world leaders to end poverty in Africa. Artistes such as Madonna, Mariah Carey and U2 will [...]

Pop has never been more in sync, as Indian record labels root aggressively for Pakistani pop. In fact, Lahore-based Ali Zafar, the latest voice to cross over, is an RD Burman buff who’s found a taker in Universal Music. ‘ Zafar is the third Pakitani artist, after pop band Jal and singer Faakir, to hit [...]

From a local street urchin to the businessman in the high rise, all fervently seem to hum that heart-rending track, ‘Woh lamhey’ in every nook and corner of this dynamic city. It’s the flavour of this season, the song on every radio station, the blare of every stereo-system in the fly-by-night cars and even forms [...]

Korah Baghat, a 27-year-old resident of a remote village in Cholistan, describes Lahore as a ‘wonderland’. ‘The folks of this city are wonderful people. They shook hands with me, embraced me, sat with me on the ground, shared food and water with me in one pot,’ “The people don’t buy vegetables from us. They prefer [...]

This was about two famous singers from India and Pakistan, two countries that have been at war for close to six decades, coming together to enthrall a crowd full of Indians and Pakistanis for a concert called Sada-e-ghazal — music beyond borders. Talat Aziz and Ghulam Ali, the Indian and Pakistani ghazal singers — ghazal [...]

Stephanie Bosch performed on the flute. She is a disciple of Pandit Hariparsad Chaurasia, a master of classical Indian music and well known for his command of the bansuri. She studied with him in Mumbai and Rotterdam. She has given solo performances on the flute in Germany, Netherlands, India and Sri Lanka. The artist, together [...]

The lead vocalist of Junoon – a radical rock band of the last decade, Ali Azmat, has launched his first solo album titled ‘Social Circus’. The album is released by Sadaf Stereo. Describing his album’s theme, he said it was a personal expression — a kind in which philosophical moods and thematically expressed events of [...]

When the late legendary qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan first sang in the United States, his concerts weren’t so different from those he performed in his native Pakistan. Now carrying the message forward from a family line five centuries long are the young Khans — Rizwan and Muazzam Ali Khan — one critic dubbed [...]