‘Musical Night’ held at PNCA for flood victims

Yasir Ilyas

A ‘Musical Night’ was organised by the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) here on Friday.

Renowned singers Shahida Minni and Adeel Burki performed on the occasion along with artistes from Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The two singers donated all income generated through the activity for flood victims.

Shahida Minni came to the stage in a loud round of applause by the audience, but she refused to start singing for them unless they donate money for the victims of devastating floods in the country. Donation boxes were placed at different points and a couple of boxes were fetched to the rows of the audience to collect donations.

Then Shahida Minni sang live for the audience who had come in large numbers to listen to her. She presented her hit number -- ‘Dhamaal’ of Laal Shahbaz Qalandar to enthral the audience.

Later, Adeel Burki presented the famous poem of Dr. Muhammad Iqbal ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai’ without the support of any music instruments and earned a lot of appreciation of all those present on the occasion. He also sang the national anthem of Pakistan in the end along with all participants.

Earlier, PNCA Director General Tauqeer Nasir, in his opening address, said that the ‘Musical Night’ is an effort to reintroduce certain Southeast Asian instruments, which are counted in classics but lost their popularity in the modern day music.

All artistes who performed in the event presented their songs on traditional instruments, including ‘rubab,’ ‘jaltrang,’ ‘sarangi,’ ‘santoor,’ ‘shehnai,’ ‘ghara,’ ‘sarinda,’ ‘tabla’ and ‘seroz’. Local artistes Muhammad Ali and Uzma Ali also performed on the occasion and received applause from the audience.