Innovating with music, all for a noble cause

Karachi
There’s no denying that despite the air of conservatism prevailing in the country today, Karachi still teems with music of all varieties and an equally diverse array of music enthusiasts.
The city’s record with respect to performances has remained impressive given the vile realities of its everyday life, and Sunday evening saw one which, perhaps, has never been staged before.
It was highly innovative; innovative in that the music spanned all varieties, from classical to light to theme songs from films. All numbers were accompanied by highly profound visuals that made the music, especially the vocal variety, come home in the most poignant of manner.
Rashna Gazder and her pupils get tons of credit for the show, especially Rashna herself, who gave the show such an inventive form that listeners enjoyed the numbers all the more.
The woman is a storehouse of talent, which was amply proved by her performance of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, and Vivaldi. Visuals depicting landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and photographs of Germany and Russia added immense profundity to the pieces.
These were classics with a modern twist with Rashna at the piano and Terrence Joseph at the keyboard. Her rendition started off with Beethoven’s Fur Elise, rendered in the most masterly of fashion with deft finger work. This was followed by Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, which again was followed by the choral portion of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Rashna’s performance was simply superb. In fact, it would be impossible to carry out a rating of the artistes in the 26-item programme as all of them were plainly splendid. For many of us who were teenagers in the 1960s, it was like being catapulted back in time with brothers Ibrahim and Abdullah Khan playing Chopsticks, a very popular melody, on the piano.
Another hit from the 1970s was, “Raindrops keep falling on my head”, the theme song of the early 1970s movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, played on the piano by the young and vivacious Mariam Merchant.
There was Shereen Marker with her Alloutte, a trademark tune of France. It, indeed, was a masterly rendition.
The most striking performance, however, was Ruxshin Cyrus Dinshaw’s Mozart variations. It was the kind of music that makes one’s soul waft over celestial meadows. There was another piano prodigy, Fareezeh Sidhwa, with Johann Strauss’s immortalised composition, Blue Danube. Fareezeh successfully preserved the highly vibrant tempo of the tune.
There was the really glamorous Sara Haider, a real nightingale, a treasure house of vocal talent who performed three pieces, the first one being Love Ballads with Rashna and Terence. She also sang Skyfall from the latest James Bond movie of the same name, accompanied on the piano by Russel Martins, a lad from St Patrick’s High School. Sara excels in singing in descant. Especially nostalgic was her rendition of a 1960s hit by the late Elvis Presley, “For I can’t help falling in love with you.”
Most touching was the vocal rendition, “My heart will go on”, by a visually impaired student of the Karachi University’s social work department. It indeed was a very touching juncture when, before the commencement of her number, she exhorted the audiences to thank God for the gift of sight. Her song was equally profound, something that makes tears well in the eyes of so many. Her voice was deep and conveyed the pangs of the physical handicap. Unfortunately, the space constraint does not permit one to write about the performers of all 26 items but suffice it to say that they were all quite brilliant on the night.
How one wished that Rashna could arrange more such performances in a city which otherwise has nothing but killings and robberies to report. This performance indeed was a breath of fresh air.
Moreover, the show was a fundraiser for the Layton-Rehmatullah Benevolent Trust (LRBT) which has, to date, restored the sight of 29 million patients free of charge, in some cases the operations otherwise costing Rs100,000. There were visuals of hopeless cases, financially challenged people, who had been restored the indispensable gift of sight by the LRBT. Proceeds will go to the LRBT for the real Yeoman’s service they are rendering society.