A quest to find Jinnah’s Karachi through music

Karachi
The I Am Karachi consortium officially announced its first music festival at a press conference held at Port Grand on Monday.
The “I Am Karachi Music Festival 2015 – Music Matters!” is being organised by the MAD School and eminent music band, Fuzon. The aim of the festival is to revive and reclaim the music culture of Karachi, which is in line with the overall mission of the I Am Karachi movement that has been striving to rebuild the social and cultural fabric of our violence-ridden city.
A large number of I Am Karachi members and partners were present at the press briefing including prominent personalities such as the founder of Port Grand and founding member of I Am Karachi, Shahid Firoz; MAD School founders, Nida Butt and Hamza Jafri, musician Mekaal Hasan; and Fuzon band’s Shallum Xavier and Imran Momina aka Emu.
The press conference kicked off with remarks by the founding chief of Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, Jameel Yousuf, who said the main aim of the festival was revive the musical culture of Karachi. “What would be a more beautiful gift for Quaid-e-Azam, than to own his native city?” he said. “Pakistan was once at the cusp of rising music industries in the world and Karachi was at the heart of it. The city used to be at the heart of the music scene in terms of great concerts and avenues to recreational engagements, as well as spaces for people to come together for greater interaction.” Speaking on the occasion, MAD school’s co-founder, Hamza Jafri said the initiative was an effort to bring the Karachiites closer through music.
Musician Mekaal Hasan, who is leading the festival, gave a detailed account of all events planned at the festival.
He said the festival had multiple components bringing together emerging and established musicians from across the city.
The components include a music mentorship series — a day long programme being held at the MAD School; music dialogues — a series of 12 interactive panel discussions and performances being held on August 4 5 at the Beach Luxury Hotel; and finally a two-day music festival being held at Port Grant on August 8 and 9 with two stages attributed to traditional and modern music, respectively, bringing together performances from leading and emerging names of both genres.
Speaking on the model of the festival, Shallum Xavier said the festival also hoped to encourage emerging youth talent to showcase their work and take the stage with performances from a myriad of genres such as rock, indie folk, qawwali and experimental. Speaking on the model of the festival, Emu shared he had faced an immense struggle when he started out as a musician. He said attitudes towards music were changing within the society and newly-established music academies were a blessing for aspiring musicians.
Nida Butt, the founder of MAD School, also spoke on the occasion. “Special mentoring sessions have been arranged at the MAD school to provide master classes in categories ranging from guitar lessons to eastern vocals for practicing musicians so they can hone their skills and talents,” she said.
Speaking on the need to support similar events on a city-wide scale, Shahid Firoz said, “The two-day ticketed music festival being held at Port Grand at a nominal charge of Rs500 per day is in line with I AM KARACHI’s objective of providing a safe public space where people can come together to celebrate the forgotten culture of music.”
At the festival a diverse range of more than 60 well-known and emerging artists will perform 30 hours of live music from over 15 different genres on two kinds of stages, a modern and a traditional stage. The artists include Shehzad Roy, Humaira Channa, Farid Ayaz, Zoe Viccaji, Mai Dhai and newcomers including Alicia Dias and Sarah Haider.