|
Home Contact: Phone: Email:
|
||
|
|
||
|
||||
 |
KASHISH - ATTRACTION |
|||
|
Kiran Ahluwalia Sings Songs of Love Ghazals and Punjabi Folk Songs From India, Pakistan, and Canada The Indian sub-continent, now India and Pakistan, has given many things to the world’s culture: Hinduism, Buddhism, and tea, to name but a few. The region has also given the world some of the most accomplished celebrations of human love: the Kama Sutra, an epic description of physical love; the Taj Mahal, one man’s tribute to his beloved; and the poetic song form known as the ghazal. Ghazals are like polished diamonds- a single stone with many facets. Each ghazal is a single poem containing within itself a myriad of passionate smaller poems. Ghazals came to the sub-continent from Persia in the 14th century. Unlike the physical love depicted in Indian erotic art, ghazals operate on the plane of poetic imagery and metaphor. They explore the many moods of love, from the ecstatic to the despondent. Ghazals also use human love as a mask to address many other aspects of the human condition. For over six hundred years the finest poets of what is now India and Pakistan turned their talents to writing them and the finest singers and musicians used all their skill and training to interpret them. Kiran Ahluwalia is an Indo- Canadian singer who has devoted much of her life to learning the art of Indian vocal music. Trained in classical Indian singing, she found herself drawn to the ghazal form and folk songs of Punjab, her family’s home region. The ghazal is a challenging form featuring both structure and improvisation. Kiran relies on many years of training to master the intricacies of improvising within the rhythm and leaving the rhythmic cycle and returning to it. Accompanied by tabla, guitar and harmonium, Kiran adds the drone of the tanpura to her voice to fill out an ensemble capable of both delicacy and power. Initially most of Kiran’s performances were within the South Asian community. Since embracing a full time performing career in June of 2000 Kiran Ahluwalia has performed her music at a wide variety of events in a surprising number of places: The Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, as part of India: The Living Arts exhibition; the Frostbite Festival in Whitehorse; the bar of Quebec City’s Clarendon Hotel, where she received four standing ovations and would have received several more had time allowed; a Hindu temple in Saskatoon, a house concert on BC’s Gabriola Island, and the big stage at Toronto’s Harbourfront on Canada Day are examples of Kiran’s versatility and diverse appeal. In the summer of 2001 and again in 2002, Kiran toured across Canada, performing at festivals and in concert. In addition to many places in Ontario, Kiran has performed in Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon. She has performed outside Canada as well, gracing stages in England, Germany, the United States, Pakistan and India. She has worked with dance ensembles at the Canada Dance Festival at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, added her vocals to a recording of poets, and recently workshopped an opera with music by jazz pianist D. D. Jackson and a libretto by George Elliot Clarke at the Guelph Jazz Festival. At festivals Kiran Ahluwalia is a programmer’s delight. Not only can she walk the walk but also talk the talk: Kiran is an artist firmly rooted in both South Asian and North American culture, able to explain to audiences unfamiliar with her music the structure and content of her music. She and her musicians are able to participate in workshops on vocal styles, love songs, World Music, improvisation, and percussion and rhythm. One presenter remarked, "You should be the Ambassador of ghazals in North America". A reviewer for The Globe and Mail articulated the same sentiment- "For those uninitiated into the charms of non-classical Indian music, this is an ideal place to start". Here is an artist of uncommon skill, superbly trained, with a repertoire that is rarely heard outside the community from which it comes. Kiran is presently engaged in a remarkable project of creating a repertoire of Canadian ghazals. She is doing research into Indo and Pakistani Canadian poetry and setting poems written in the ghazal form to her own music. A number of these compositions will be ready for the recording of Kiran’s second CD, scheduled for release in early 2003. |
||||
