Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

I did not for one moment take for granted that performing before me - full-belt, alive and present; giving his heart, his craft, his music - was Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. Glorious was the word, and really there are not many words that can begin to capture it. This blog post will be short.

I smiled throughout, felt expanded and became one step closer to my own dreams and destinies.

Kitty&Kitty loved the evening - and what a fabulous and apt way to spend the turning of the spring equinox. The equinox arrived at 5.30pm and by 7pm we were in our seats. As the evening gathered pace, and the songs layer on layer worked to their ecstacy (as happens also within many of the individual songs) we were in raptures and enraptured.

Rahat did not interrupt his music with chat. He didn't need to. A quiet air of ease on his plump red and gold cushion, and a voice that belted to the Gods. It is hard to believe he is just 35 years old.

The evening was a mix of Bollywood and Qawwali. Last autumn he was in London for his Remembering Nusrat tour. That seemed a project in establishing himself as heir-apparent to the Nusrat legacy, and this year he is back to establish brand Rahat.

His version of Akhiyan Udeek Diyan was the one that really lifted the roof. It injected new energy, and was the turning point of the performance and evening. From the Bollywoods, I loved O Re Piya. After the roof-lifting, Dam Mast Qalandar (Ali! Ali!) and Afreen Afreen were just terrific too.

Afreen was the encore, which delighted me a lot as this is a song I have discovered through repeated listenings. I have a Nusrat MP3 bought for 45Rs (about 60p) in an Indian bazaar (actually I have several!) - it contains 20hours of tracks and on the digital display all are unnamed... it really is Nusrat by number! I have learned over time that if I go to track #3 in the section after the one totalling 17 songs, I get uplifted with Afreen Afreen. This is one of a number of tracks that I locate in this way. And so I heard it again at the spring equinox and Nusrat by number is fleshed out a little more.

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(Rahat Fateh Ali Khan @ Royal Festival Hall, London - 20 March 2010)

Happy 300th Birthday Dr Thomas Arne!

On pew, I sit. For the first time I am in St. Mary's Church, Stoke Newington (not far from my East London home) - a building most-glorious in its gothic illumination at night.

It is 6.30pm Sunday, and I am here for the 300th Birthday celebratory concert by Linden Baroque Orchestra.

Dr Thomas Arne, now 300, was the most successful song writer of his day, and produced a sound that today feels regal, gallant, and to many ears "typically English".

Electric connection with this music came for me in Steven Devine's solo in the Harpsichord Concerto (No.5 in G). The notes fell like crystal rain, and I imagined myself pushing aside curtains of beaded glass and entering a palace of fine diamante. Fine diamante?! - djinn kitty, kitty djinn (I inwardly balked) you cannot compare English baroque with that most pedalled ingredient of democratised jewellery!

Yet, I could. In the mid-eighteenth century, Dr Thomas Arne was a most popular and commercially successful feature at London's pleasure gardens - unmissable hubs of cultural entertainment where all of London irrespective of class gathered. At the famous pleasure gardens at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Marylebone (and others), Londoners delighted in varied and eclectic programmes of song, glee, chorus, sometimes opera, alternating with overtures, symphonies, and concertos. The old mixed with the new, and there was much pastiche. Thomas Arne was central to this pastiche - he prepresented the new, the shiny. His songs often plumped out programmes and drew in the crowds (yet represented a most popular choice of "taste" - that great C18 value). Pleasure-garden gatherers might've enjoyed a solo song by Arne (like 'The Lover's Rencantation' we heard this eve) followed by a symphony. In Thomas Arne we can find a fine, glistening, democratised crystal, that sparkles and sings, and mixes with the party atmosphere and brings pleasure to many. Diamante!

This great and interesting historical music was brought alive by Linden Baroque Orchestra, who specialise in performing Baroque music on period instruments (find them on facebook). The music was accompanied by a programme written with wit and dexterity - the care in fine writing and precision of information added a grace to the proceedings and warmed this damp-cold January evening with a sense that you were somewhere most interesting and special.