Water Festival and Sufi Night Revisit Ahmedabad

India’s first World Heritage City will be celebrating the World Heritage Week with the 8th annual Crraft of Art Heritage Festival. The festival shall bring together celebrated artists from Hindustani classical music as well as folk and world music genre from across the world to Ahmedabad.

Breaking away from the known venue, this season, the festival is going to new places. Festival organizer Birwa Qureshi and festival’s artistic mentor Ustad Fazal Qureshi announced the Sufi Festival at the primordial edifice Khan Masjid of Dholka on the first day of World Heritage Week, November 19, 2017. While theWater Festival will continue at its favoured venue Adalaj Ni Vav, scheduled on the last day of the celebratory week, i.e November 25, 2017. The Crraft of Art has a little more to serve this year as they have co-organized a photography exhibition called Goombaj: Musings, Music, Monuments at Amdavad Ni Gufa, which will be open for all from November 22, to 25, 2017.

The 60ish photographs displayed at the exhibition are clicked by Crraft of Art’s in-house lens-men and the display framework will be designed by architect Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, the granddaughter of veteran architect BV Doshi.  In Birwa Qureshi’s words “The picturesque glimpses will be displayed unlike an exhibition as we are trying to make it a monumental experience, just like our show.”

The exhibition is helping the youth of Ahmedabad to get connected with the historical legacy of the city stencilled in the form of brick and mortars. In tabla soloist Faizal Qureshi’s words “Music is a universal utterance, it communicates through vibes. The amalgamation of modern instruments, with instrumental Sufi and Hindustani classical music at our festival, aims to rekindle the bygone spark of traditional music amongst contemporary youth.”

Here is the most awaited lineup for this year’s music festivity:

Ustaad Fazal Qureshi – Veteran tabla player, trained under his father, late Ustad Alla Rakha. He is the brother of Ustad Zakir Hussain

Ayaan Ali Bangash – Coming from a seven-generation musical lineage, he is a sarod player and trained under maestro sarod performer, his father, Amjad Ali Khan

U Rajesh – Internationally celebrated mandolin player he is a Grammy nominee and brother of legendary mandolin artist U Srinivas

Balabhaskar – Violin instrumentalist and beloved Carnatic music performer started picking up melody skills from veteran artist B Sasikumar at the tender age of 3

Gabriel Geszti – Pianist and composer from Rio de Janeiro, has shared stage with celebrated artists like Gabriel Grossi and Wanda Sa

Karina Colis – The Latin American musician from NY, USA is a gifted drummer and percussionist who contributes in the genre of Jazz, Afro Cuban, Fusion and Pop.

Danish Hussain – Poet, Actor and contributor in films like Alif, Dhobi Ghat and Ankho Dekhi is ready to perform traditional spoken word arts.

Ravi Chary – The sitarist from Goa is trained under notable tabla player Late Pt Prabhakar Chari.

Arun Kumar – A drummer with roots of Carnatic classical music

Varun Venkit – Drummer from Agnee band, can play dhol, conga, bongo, darbuka, tar, dafli, daff and various other percussion instruments.