Pakistani music project wins nomination for 16th IMAs

Pakistan’s premier music project, the Indus Raag -- Gold Edition -- has won a nomination in the 16th Independent Music Awards (IMAs) announced recently in New York City.

This was announced at a press conference at a local hotel by Sharif Awan, the producer of the album. Awan earned two nominations previously in the 15th IMAs. Award winners will be announced on March 31 at the Lincoln Centre, New York.

The names of over 400 nominees for 96 categories were announced in New York on February 14, 2018. The Indus Raag project also won a gold medal and two silver medals in the Global Music Awards (USA) and was declared among the top 10 albums of 2016.

These programmes have been undertaken under the umbrella of the Tehzeeb Foundation, which has now been giving impetus to Pakistan’s cultural and artistic heritage for 10 years. “We inherit the artistic resource,” Awan said.

The Indus Raag project, he said, involved top quality musicians from both India and Pakistan. The husband-wife team of Sharif and Malahat Awan has rendered real Yeoman’s service to Pakistan’s cultural, artistic and historical heritage and have made the most successful endeavours to preserve it.

The foundation, the brainchild of Sharif and Malahat Awan, has organised prestigious conferences and musical festivals all over the country for almost nine years now. The Tehzeeb Festival and Awards is one of the most prestigious events of its kind in Pakistan. So far, eight festival and award ceremonies have been held featuring classical and folk musicians from Pakistan and India and from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK, France, Germany and other countries.

The foundation also publishes books on arts and music. Awan lauded the press for having always extended its cooperation. He was full of praise for Karachi, saying that the city had a vast reservoir of talent and was very cosmopolitan.

Awan also announced the holding of a grand musical concert on April 13, 14 and 15. “We need cultural consolidation at the national level.” Next year, Awan said, there would be a big concert of Sufi music. In passing, he told the media that a project of poems by noted revolutionary poet the late Faiz Ahmed Faiz, coupled with the music of the late music director Khurshid Anwar, had been put in cold storage during the Zia regime.