From gigs to festivals, the music scene is moving in the right direction.
By Maheen Sabeeh | For Instep – The News | March 29, 2016
The last few weeks have been good for the music scene. Given the number of live shows across the country and the rise and success of initiatives specifically designed to engage listeners, the movement, albeit slowly, is taking music in the right direction. From online ventures like Patari and Taazi that not allow listeners legal access to music but also helps the industry gain some semblance of structure and integrity by paying the artists through one measure or another to literary and music festivals that play host to brilliant music names, it’s been a heavy, music fueled week and it’s not over yet.
The newest musical initiative to make attention is the ambitious Cornetto Pop Rock, a series of shows that will help in resurrecting the live music scene across universities in Pakistan. Set to take place annually across Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, the project features a series of concerts that will feature, in its first season, Ali Azmat, Noori, Komal Rizvi, Umair Jaswal, Zoe Viccaji while Anoushey Ashraf will serve as host to the gigs. Two wild card performers Ali Zafar and Q of Josh are also attached to the project.
For the youth in attendance at these shows, the opportunity is two-fold: one, witness a fantastic live show, and two, get a chance to be mentored by these very musicians, if you have a touch of the musical poet in you.
To mark the launch, a star-studded event was put together, this past weekend, which saw an intimate gathering of media, stars and musicians come together for a cause that will certainly serve as a pushback to negative forces and remind young people enrolled across universities in Pakistan that music has the power to heal and engage. Since this is the first season, the shows will begin from the three major cities but hopefully with the passage of time, the seasons will become inclusive and head to smaller parts of the country as well.
Those in attendance included Noori brothers Ali Noor and Ali Hamza, Ali Azmat and Komal Rizvi, Omran Shafique, Zoe Viccaji, Umair Jaswal, Nida Azwer, Munib Nawaz and many, many others.
The promo (for Cornetto Pop Rock – Season 1) features Ali Azmat, Noori men Ali Hamza and Ali Noor and Komal Rizvi alongside young music aficionados and provides a slight glimpse into the idea behind this new music project. And it has to be said that it has multiple things to offer.
Outside of the shows, this project will also showcase some unique music. Six music videos are scheduled to release later this summer (May/June) and at least three of them will be duets. They include Ali Azmat and Noori (who will get together for the first time since ‘Ooncha Hoon Mein’), Q of Josh and Komal Rizvi while the third pairing is of Umair Jaswal and Zoe Viccaji. In addition to these three collaborations, the singles will come from Ali Azmat, Noori and Umair Jaswal. That’s a whooping six songs. Fashion designers such as Nomi Ansari, Deepak Perwani and Munib Nawaz are also attached to the project but, we could work either way on wardrobe, make up and such stuff since fashion week and lawn overdose is plenty. But anyway.
And while we wait on these collaborative duets, keep your calendar open for the second edition of the Lahore Music Meet, scheduled to take place this April. The schedule for the festival is finally out and is quite brilliant in its simplicity.
Red Blood Cat and Mai Dhai will perform at the end of day one while day two’s serenading duties go to Sounds of Kolachi and Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi. The interactive panel discussions cover several topics such as ‘Audio Visual Collectives of Music in Pakistan’, ‘Who Cares About the Bassist’, ‘Locating Our Heritage: Traditional Folk Music in Pakistan’ and many others.
Participation is fairly strong with names like Zohaib Kazi, Bilal Nasir Khan (Forever South), Tina Sani, Arieb Azhar, Takatak, Jamal Rahman, Sikandar Mufti, Zeeshan Chaudhry (EMI Pakistan), Khalid Bajwa (Patari), Mekaal Hasan Band, Rakae Jamil, Shiraz Uppal, Ahsan Bari, Zoe Viccaji, Sara Haider, Bilal Iftikhar, Taha Malik, Abbas Ali Khan, Ali Noor and Ali Hamza (of Noori), Raavail Sattar and several notable others featured as speakers.
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