The Weis Center will welcome Shahram Azhar and his Quartet on Thursday, October 15 at 7:30 p.m. in the Weis Center Atrium.
The performance is titled, “From the Wound to the Dawn” and will be an evening of raag, thumri and ghazal. (Raag, thumri, and ghazal are foundational concepts in Indian classical and semi-classical music, representing the melodic framework, a romantic vocal genre, and a poetic-musical form, respectively.)
Associate Professor of Economics at Bucknell University Shahram Azhar performs with his quartet, which includes harmonium, tabla, sitar, and keyboard. The performance will fuse Urdu and Punjabi poetry and North Indian music with Western traditions.
Azhar is a classically trained musician, composer and singer in the North Indian classical tradition, starting his training at 6 under Ustad Mahfouz Khokhar. A child prodigy, Azhar became the youngest solo artist to sing on Pakistan television. His work combines revolutionary poetry with the emotional vocabulary of the Raaga and Thaat system — a tradition developed over 5,000 years — which tells stories of human life and existence through music.
In 2008, Azhar founded the band Laal, using music and poetry as instruments of resistance. His debut album, Umeed-e-Sahar, composed during the Musharraf dictatorship, became Pakistan’s number one selling album and produced anthems of democratic resistance still sung across India and Pakistan. His most recent album, Maa Boli Da Qarz, has been received as an intellectually rich contribution to Punjabi music. He has sung in over 15 languages, with his most recent English song a poem by Robert Frost, composed in an Indian-Western fusion scale.
At the Weis Center, Azhar will take the audience on a spiritual journey from birth to death through the Poorya Dhanashri Raaga and end with Ahir Bhairava – the Raaga of Dawn. Each set of notes will, without words, communicate the universal human emotions of birth, happiness, reassurance, yearning, anxiety, confusion, restoration and deliverance. He will follow with a ghazal by the great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib with the evening being devoted to a single Raaga system.
TICKETS
Tickets are $20 for all adults and youth under 18 and Bucknell students are free. No discounts may be applied. Seating is general admission.
Tickets can be reserved by calling 570-577-1000 or online at Bucknell.edu/BoxOffice.
Tickets are also available in person from several locations including the Weis Center lobby (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and the CAP Center Box Office, located on the ground floor of the Elaine Langone Center (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.).
For more information about this event, contact Lisa Leighton, marketing and outreach director, at 570-577-3727 or by e-mail at lisa.leighton@bucknell.edu.
For more information about the Weis Center for the Performing Arts, go to Bucknell.edu/WeisCenter or search for the Weis Center on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.