Abida Parveen In Dubai.
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By ADNAN IQBAL, Marketing Director, UMR Article
The name it self speaks of a living Legend. There is no comparison in any form or way or style of music that she has been representing all her life.
About Abida Parveen.
Abida Parveen was born in Larkana, Sindh, Pakistan, where her father, Ghulam Haider, ran a music school. Though women in Muslim society are rarely encouraged to pursue musical (or other performance) careers, her father recognized his daughter’s extraordinary talent at an early age and encouraged her to sing. Her career crystallized after her marriage to the late Ghulam Hussain Sheikh, a senior producer in Radio Pakistan who became her mentor. She studied classical vocal music with Salamat Ali Khan, who, like Abida Parveen, has appeared previously at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. While she does not regularly perform purely classical music, her prodigious command of the ornamental idiom and developmental genius of this genre is apparent throughout her music. She has performed in a wide range of venues both sacred and secular, from the shrines of saints in her native Sindh to the world’s greatest concert halls.
Experience was ,I wish I had the words to explain what it was like..
Pakistani singer Abida Parveen’s truly amazing voice has earned her the status as heir to the crown of the late Qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Though not as immediate as the surging ecstasies of the big Qawwali ensembles, her intimate, charged music offers much to those prepared to give themselves over to it.Personally it has been a great experience working with her and listening to her live in an environment very well designed by Aparna and Atif from Orbit event management.
A real cult is now devoted to Abida, proof indeed of the way this immense artist gives herself over entirely to her public in her music; so long as they demand it, she is ready to go on giving the best of her gifts to serve the kalam (the Word) of the Sufi saints. Sometimes she will linger on a low note, sometimes she’ll rise to dizzy heights with oval ornaments of dazzling virtuosity; she seems to be in a state of ecstatic communion with her audience, inspired by an energy coming directly from Him whose praises she sings.
Very few Westerners understand the texts. Parveen sings about love of the only one, and the wish to be united with this divine creature. But she interprets the Sufi poetry with a clear diction and a gentle, often melancholy presence which makes the message go right in.
Abida Parveen gets her material from the old texts of the Sufi poets and herself composes the music, which is as richly ornamented as the warm voice embracing the stanzas. The ancient, soulful strains of Sufi music can some day unite the sparring neighbours India and Pakistan, says Abida Parveen in an interview in Indo-Asian News Service, April 2003: Long feted as the heir to the crown of the late Qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistani singer Abida Parveen is the owner of one of the most remarkable voices on the planet.
Beautiful, uplifting stuff; though not as immediate as the surging ecstacies of the big Qawwali ensembles, her intimate, charged music offers much to those prepared to give themselves over to it.
Even on the closing “Are logo tumhara kya”, “Dum ali”whose more insistent groove pushes into Qawwali territory, she tempers the joyous defiance of the poem with a deep yet slightly ungraspable melancholy. With such a voice Parveen could sing a shopping list and have an audience weeping (though I doubt we’d ever get to test that particular theory)..
