World Music Institute presents -

Shafqat Ali Khan

Saturday, March 17,  8:00 pm
Tickets: $32, $12 for NYU Students w/valid ID

Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
New York University
566 LaGuardia Place (Washington Square South)
New York, NY 10012
skirballcenter.nyu.edu
worldmusicinstitute.org

Shafqat Ali Khan is a passionate performer who mixes Western influence with his classical Indian training

In Indian classical music, a musician's worth is often framed within the context of the gharana (the term defines a cross between a family tree and an intellectual circle) within which that musician has been educated. Shafqat received his training from his father, a product of the Sham Chaurasi gharana, named for the small town in East Punjab where the family originated. The style of raga interpretation favored over several centuries by Sham Chaurasi singers was the austere, almost minimal form known as dhrupad. In recent years, however, Shafqat's father initiated a change in style, adopting the relatively modern, more elaborately ornamented style known as khyal singing; the latter term literally means "imagination."

The khyal form demands improvisational flexibility as well as careful attention to nuances of intonation, phrasing and rhythm. Combining the endurance and rigorous tone demanded by dhrupad training with the expressiveness encouraged by khyal style, Shafqat is capable of articulating heretofore unexplored nuances in centuries-old music, stretching his interpretations of notoriously difficult ragas to extraordinary lengths.

Shafqat's entire life has been spent in preparation for his own career in khyal singing, yet he has also experimented with pop forms in the late '80s in England, and additionally with a further fusion/ambient project recorded in Europe; the latter found Shafqat duetting with his father on a project called Princes of the Sea.

In Shafqat's view, music represents a single language shared by mankind. His own tastes in recreational listening - including symphonic works, pop, jazz and opera - evince a fundamentally eclectic nature and a willingness to experiment. Both Shafqat and his father share a love of Nat King Cole's singing. Shafqat cites Cole's vocals as coming "Straight from the heart. Nowadays, everybody in the music business dreams only of creating a public image and becoming wealthy. But when you go back to the '50s, artists wanted to be represented by their work. In this world, today, that's how I am as well."

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