Sanam Marvi and Harshdeep Kaur to perform one-off show in Manchester

Sanam Marvi and Harshdeep Kaur, two of Sufi music’s brightest female stars, are coming to the UK for a one-off concert this summer.

On Saturday 1 July, the duo will be performing solo sets and then singing together for the first time at Sangam 2017, which takes place at The Lowry in Salford.

Presented as part of this summer’s Manchester International Festival, the concert will be hosted by DJ and presenter Noreen Khan of the BBC Asian Network.

The show celebrates the opening of HOME1947, a unique film installation at The Lowry by two-time Academy Award-winning artist and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. This moving and personal installation marks 70 years since the partition of British India.

John McGrath, the Artistic Director of Manchester International Festival, said: “We are honoured to welcome two of the greatest stars of Sufi music to MIF17, performing together for the first time. This performance is a fitting celebration of the remarkable creativity and rich cultures of South Asia, on the 70th anniversary of independence.”

Sangam 2017

Sat 1 July, 7.30pm

The Lowry

Tickets £25 – £45 / £12 for Greater Manchester residents on a lower wage

From www.mif.co.uk or 0843 208 1840

Sanam Marvi was born in 1986 in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. By age seven, she had begun singing with her father, Faqir Ghulam Rasool, during festivals and ceremonies held at shrines throughout Pakistan’s Sindh and Punjab provinces, and continued her studies under noted gurus, including Ustad Fateh Ali Khan at the Gwailor gharana (school).

 

Her breakout performance on Pakistan’s national television in 2009 made her a rising star, since when her persuasive and revelatory interpretations of the subcontinent’s mystic and humanist poetries have crossed cultural borders and generations to offer solace in our uncertain and often troubled times. She has toured widely around the world, and has been featured many times on Pakistan’s popular Coke Studio. She is the subject of Marvi: The Mystic Muse, a documentary by Tanya Panjwani (2016).

Harshdeep Kaur was born in 1986 into a Sikh family in Delhi, inheriting music from her father, Savinder Singh, who owns a factory of musical instruments. She started learning music at the age of six; and then, aged 12, she joined the Delhi School of Music to learn piano.

Harshdeep is famous for her Sufi genre songs, and has featured in Coke Studio (India) on MTV in all four seasons. She headlined the Alchemy Festival at the Southbank Centre in London and the Mosaic Festival in Mississauga in 2013; performed alongside Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan at the MTV Unplugged Live in 2014; and joined legendary composer AR Rahman on his Jai Ho World Tour across the USA, the UK, the UAE and South Africa. She has shared stages with the best composers in India, such as Pritam Chakroborty, Amit Trivedi, Salim-Sulaiman, Vishal-Shekhar.