LAHORE - The two-day second session of Pakistan’s first ever music symposium Lahore Music Meet (LMM) culminated with featuring open-air concerts and gigs, sessions and thought provoking panel discussions on contemporary music to future of music industry in Pakistan at Lahore Art Council (Alhamra) yesterday.
Singer cum actor Ali Zafar talking to media said Lahore Music Meet was a platform where young musicians of the country showcased their talent and proved themselves. Ali said only talent is not enough until it meet with an opportunity. ‘I witness encouraging scenes at LMM where youth perform from jam to classical music genres in beautiful city of Lahore having pleasant atmosphere’, Ali said that.
Ali said that supporting these kinds of music events by the government was appreciable but the government should come up 15 to 20 years cultural policy for the progress of the music industry and musicians.
‘We need to pay respect to our classical music singers who were legends and without wasting any time we need to start preserve archive albums of our classical music Ustads (Masters) for coming generations.’, he said.
Bigwigs of the music industry across the country attended the LMM and appreciated the effort to gather the various genres musicians at one platform to discourse on the future of music industry.
In session ‘Have a look at the sound: evolution of music video in Pakistan’ speakers said old era of music industry has gone and we were not anymore living in MTV era but in fashion’s era where tends have been changing overnight. Musicians of contemporary era were coming up with innovative ideas for video making which was actually a slow process indulged to materialize artist’s ideas, they said.
Naseer Afridi of rock band from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that we artists and we were the ones who need to tell people what they need to watch because we are more ‘creative’. These days a lot of symbolism had reached in music videos as these videos narrates what yours music and ideology is all about.
Filmmaker Aisha Linnea Akthar said musicians were just storytellers when making music videos and we are living in an era where you just come up with innovative idea or simply pass on. On the occasion, Aarad Junejo, Saqib Malik, Aisha Linnea Akthar, Shahbaz Shigri, Naseer Afridi were the panelists.
Musicians have to recalibrate themselves in order to take the music industry competing with other music industries of the region and globe.
Without this we are fighting a war without strategy, the speakers reached to a consensus.
Other session included ‘Scoring for the Big Screen: Soundtracks and Music in Pakistani Cinema’; ‘Audio-Visual Collectives in Pakistan’; ‘The Dissemination of Music in the Digital Age’ and ‘Location our Heritage: Traditional Folk Music in Pakistan’.
LMM established this year to provide a platform for all activities pertaining to music performance, enterprise, education and academia to take place with the ultimate goal of encouraging talents and fostering relationships between individuals within the music fraternity. LMM hopes to revitalize the reputation and perception of music within the country and abroad.
The musical extravaganza ended with the performance of Pakistan’s leading folk musician Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi received with huge applaud and appreciation.