Millennium gala · Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Music of the East: 2000 — a Millennium of Music
A gala of South Asian classical and spiritual music to mark the Millennium, in the presence of HRH Princess Sarvath El Hassan of Jordan.
- Date
- October 2000
- City
- Birmingham
For the Millennium the Academy staged a gala of South Asian classical and Sufi music at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, with HRH Princess Sarvath El Hassan of Jordan as Chief Guest. It was delivered in partnership with Birmingham City Council and with the BBC, whose all-night Millennium broadcast was linked to the concert, and it was conceived both as a showcase of the music and as a celebration of the city's cultural diversity.
The gala took its name from Payam-i Mashriq — Iqbal's Message of the East, written in 1923 in reply to Goethe's West–östlicher Divan. As early as the twelfth century Al Ghazali had written of the poetic and musical heritage that enriched the Islamic tradition. Kafi and qawwali represent the Sufi mission of bringing different religions and cultures together through music: forms of devotional poetry that have evolved into a glorious, shared contribution to music worldwide.
Amir Khusrau, at the court of Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi (1296–1316), was the genius through whom this form of singing really developed and flowered. Born to a Hindu mother and a Muslim Turkish father, he worked at the synthesis of Hindu and Muslim cultures, mixing Indian, Persian and Turkish musical modes into distinct mystical forms following the devotional traditions of the Sufis, in which music is recognised as a means of attaining spirituality.
Presented with