Pan-Asian music festival comes to Leeds

Bangla Music Festival is returning to Leeds with word-class performances. This unique, critically acclaimed three-month long festival, returns to Seven Arts, Leeds on November 5 at 6pm with the presentation of few intriguing genres of Bangali music.

The festival showcases the splendour of Bangla Music and its spectacular breadth through mind blowing performances with relevant translation.

The festival features the evolution of Bangla music, which evolved in approximately at 730AD.

Leading singers from around the UK, Indian and Bangladeshi will appear. One of the finest Tabla players of his generation, Pt Biplab Bhattacharyya is joining from India to accompany the vocalists on Tabla

The artists in the Seven Arts at Chapel Allerton include a prominent interpreter of Bengali semi-classical music, Leeds-based singer Sumana Basu and Manchetser-born highly talented and a young Tagore singer Rishi Banerjee. Amith Dey will accompany on Keyboard.

Organised by Saudha, a Leeds-based art organisation and one of the leading Indian classical music promoters of the country, the festival kicked off in Keats Museum in London and visited few prestigious venues that include the House of Commons.

Ahmed Kaysher, the director of Saudha and the curator of the festival said: “The festival became one of the most high quality event of haunting Bengali music ranged from classical to folk, ancient music (music from 730AD) to the contemporary experimental fusion by the best of Britain. It also features few international artists every year. The festival equally targets non-Asian audiences as the Asian diaspora in the West. In last five years, the festival managed to attract a strong, serious art-loving follower-base in Leeds, London and other cities from all cultural background.”

Ahmed Kaysher said: “Saudha has developed as a brand of world-class performances of world music, predominately Indian classical music for its post-modern hypnotic presentation with other complementing profound art forms. I am sure the audience in Seven arts will have a breath-taking experience of powerful Bengali music, performed by the highly acclaimed and internationally renowned artists around this country.”

Please browse www.saudha.org for more detail on the festival.

About Saudha: Saudha, a Leeds based art organisation, is dedicated to developing a true postmodern presentation of Indian classical music through intertwining with other profoundly related art forms. It campaigns to create new audience of serious art forms from around the globe by organising ‘remedial and therapeutic performances‘ (Wimbledon Guardian), ‘hypnotic musical concerts‘ (BBC Radio) and music festivals involving leading performers of each genre.