Sindhi sufi singer performs a charity concert in Singapore

[Gul Agha <agha@CS.UIUC.EDU>]

Excerpted from the Straits Times
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/life/story/0,4386,277239,00.html

Beyond words, beyond borders
By Bhagyashree Garekar
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/msendmail/0,4391,EmailReporter--277239,00.html?>


*CONCERT
ABIDA PARVEEN
Victoria Concert Hall
Last Friday*

SONGS born centuries ago in the Indian subcontinent were sung before an
enrapt audience in Singapore last Friday.

It was a strange thing, really. Very few in the audience could claim to
follow all the songs word-for-word and even fewer would identify with
their deep spiritual content...

The youthful-looking 50-year-old mother of three is often introduced as
the owner of one of the most remarkable voices on the planet.

She can sing a shopping list, one reviewer said of her, and have an
audience weeping.

Or wildly cheering, as was the case on Friday when she sang the
compositions of renowned Sufis - in chaste Urdu, folksy Punjabi, Sindhi
and some medieval Hindi dialects.

Language was the minor barrier to be crossed if you consider the themes
of the songs: an intensely personal, unabashed love for God, the defiant
mocking of social order and often overtly sensual imagery...

Abida's powerful voice could be daunting as it boomed uninhibited one
moment and turned startlingly intimate the next as she drew the listener
in with words as much as expressions and gestures.

Her shoulder-length curls flew as she tossed her head about and stabbed
the air with pointed fingers as she sang seated on the stage in the
traditional style with four accompanying musicians.

It was a spectacle for the eyes as much as a treat for the ears.

'I don't understand a word of the singing,' the chief guest at the show,
Singapore's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Zainul Abidin
Rasheed, told Life! during a short intermission.

'But it's beautiful. It's the music, the rhythm...'

Along with his wife, he stayed until the end of the four-hour concert,
tapping his feet and often joining in in the catchy refrains...

To Mr Manish Singhai, an Indian fund manager who has lived here for
seven years, Abida's draw was partly her trans-border appeal.

'She is well-known in India for her message of peace and religious
harmony,' he said...