Due to the outbreak of coronavirus in NY, along with travel restrictions for artists coming from India and Japan, we have to postpone this concert until further notice.
Love rises where the sun sets. The dome hides the dying embers of the day as Sultan Shahjahan and his Queen, always inseparable, rise from their graves to spend one final night together at their palace. What words will we hear whispered through the moonlit halls of their Taj Mahal? Will the lovers recount their memories? Will they hold each other silently and gaze into each other’s eyes until the eyes they see staring back at them have become their own? Or will they weep into each other’s arms — one final night in the face of ephemeral love?
In the legendary 1967 album, A Night At The Taj, Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Imrat Khan answer this age-old question: What would we do if we had one more day with the person we love? Ustad Vilayat Khanvoices Queen Mumtaz on his sitar and Ustad Imrat Khan replies as Shahjahan from the deep notes of his surbahar. The final conversation between the Sultan and his Queen comes to life as the dewdrops dry and the gift of timelessness fades with the rising sun.
Love has intrigued us since the dawn of time. From Helene to Eleanor, love has ravaged empires. Love has led armies to war and emperors to abandon the throne. Love has inspired the Bhakti and Sufi movements, volumes of soul-stirring poetry, and an endless collection of passionate music. And love will continue to intrigue us. It only makes sense to extend the ethereal journey undertaken by the two late maestros and to continue to find the stories of love that mark our human condition. On this fateful night, we will explore love and its many prisms. We will capture the angles at which love reflects, refracts, and intersects. We will see the endless shapes of love reflected on the wall of a dimly lit cave. We will sing these shapes into existence. We will tell stories about these shapes through Dastangoi, the lost art of Urdu storytelling. We will listen in awe as TM Krishna, Hidayat Husain Khan, Danish Hussain and Marina Ahmad undertake the voyage across this limitless sea to bring us pearls to relish the supreme and eternal human condition. We will experience an evening of exhilarating musical renditions, jugalbandis interspersed with storytelling and conversations, and the intimate mehfil-baithak will give rise to a unique theatrical experience. Like A Night At The Taj, this will be a night to remember.
TM Krishna, world-renowned Carnatic vocalist. He challenges the artistic and social orthodoxies of Carnatic music. His musicality eludes standard analyses. Uncommon in his rendition of music and original in his interpretation of it, TM is at once strong and subtle, manifestly traditional and stunningly innovative. As a public intellectual, Krishna speaks and writes about issues affecting the human condition and about matters cultural. Krishna, social activist, has started and is involved in many organizations whose work is spread across the whole spectrum of music and culture. He has performed at the White Light festival at Lincoln Centre, New York. He has been awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award in recognition for his forceful commitment as artist and an advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions.
Hidayat Husain Khan, world renowned sitarist,harbors a rare creative brilliance that effortlessly takes him across all genres and nuances of music and can seamlessly transition from the very classical, playing intricaate meands (slides) of the Etawa/ Vilayakhani Gharana to Jazz to World Music. He has performed at The Black Ball Charityin NYC with Alicia Key, and performed withYoYo Ma, Ndugu Chancler, Ronnie Woods, Usher, Pete Townshend, Will.I.Am,Jay Z, Darryl Jones, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Zakir HussainUstad Bismillah Khan, Pandit Kishan Maharaj. His album from the ensemble “Melodic Intersect” has been included in Grammy Ballotfor the best World Music Album in 2017. His album “Ziver” was Top 10 in MTV music charts and #1onBillboard charts. He has lent his versatility in several film score compositions, the most famous being “Kamasutra”
Danish Husain is an actor, poet, theater director, and instrumental in reviving Dastangoi, the lost art of Urdu storytelling. He has expanded storytelling under the umbrella of Qissebaazi, to include storytelling in other languages. He started his career in theater with Barry John and has worked with directors like Habib Tanvir, Rajinder Nath, Naseeruddin Shah and many more. His major directorial works include Gaurds at The Taj, Qissa Urdu Ki Aakhiri Kitaab Ka, Ek Punjab Yeh Bhi, Chinese Coffee, Krapp’s Last Tape, Untitled #1, and Poetrification with Denzil Smith. Few of his major film works inculde India’s entry, “Newton” to Oscarsin 2018, and other major movies are Soorma, Peepli Live, Dhobi Ghat. His latest Netflix shows, Bard of Blood and Taj Mahal 1989 have drawn a lot of attention.
Marina Ahmad,Hindustani vocalist, has trained under Pandit Jasraj. She brings an interesting twist to the classical singing with her deep mesmerizing voice which has a spiritual element to it. She not only sings classical but also Sufi music with a classical twist. Her album, “Ineffible: the divine spirit within” puts you in a trance. She has performed all over the world.