Harris Center to Present Free Screening of SONG OF LAHORE

In anticipation of a live performance by Pakistan's Sachal Ensemble on November 18, the Harris Center will present a screening of the extraordinary documentary film Song of Lahore. Admission to the screening is free, although advance tickets are recommended.

The tale told in the film is nothing short of amazing. As political tension, ethnic division, war and corruption tore apart the cultural fabric of Pakistan, the town of Lahore - once a haven for musicians and other artists - ceased as a cultural mecca. That is, until the establishment of Sachal Studios in 2004 as a place where traditional musicians could create again, if at great personal risk. How musicians from this rebel recording studio came to play jazz with Wynton Marsalis at Lincoln Center is the stuff of legend - and lends to some thrilling film making by two-time Academy Award-winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Andy Schocken.

In naming her one of the world's 100 Most Influential People in 2012 and her work on over a dozen award-winning films, Time Magazine describes Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy as "giving voice to those who cannot be heard ... She celebrates the strength and resilience of those fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds - and winning."

Song of Lahore will screen for free at the Harris Center on Sunday, October 29, 2017 at 7 pm. Advance tickets are recommended. The featured artists in the film, The Sachal Ensemble, will perform live at the Harris Center on Saturday, November 18. Tickets for the full concert are $24-$49; Premium $54. Students with ID are $12.

Tickets for both the free screening of Song of Lahore and the live performance of The Sachal Ensemble are available online at www.harriscenter.net or from the Harris Center Ticket Office at 916-608-6888 from 12 noon to 6 pm, Monday through Saturday, and two hours before show time. Parking permits are included with tickets. The Harris Center is located on the west side of the Folsom Lake College campus in Folsom, CA, facing East Bidwell Street.

Song of Lahore features The Sachal Ensemble in a cross-cultural re-creation of songs made iconic by the likes of Duke Ellington, The Beatles, Dave Brubeck, Henry Mancini, and Richard Rodgers, as well as traditional Pakistani folk songs.

The story of how these songs came to be recorded is a fascinating one.

It can be said that in the relatively safe space of the Western world, artists and listeners enjoy the ability to follow their muse wherever it takes them - to create and commune with music freely, to express themselves and exchange with others. But in other, far less fortunate places, this can never be taken for granted; even venerable musical traditions can be repressed or even banned, causing a living culture to wither.

No music lover could fail to be moved by the inspiring story of The Sachal Ensemble as depicted in the documentary film Song of Lahore by two-time Academy Award-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Andy Schocken. The musicians of The Sachal Ensemble come from the Pakistani city of Lahore, for hundreds of years a thriving center of the arts on the Indian subcontinent. By the 1960s and '70s, Lahore was the home of "Lollywood," the Pakistani equivalent of India's Bollywood film production center, employing many musicians who were virtuosos on their instruments and had developed a distinctive sound and sensibility.

But in 1977, with the establishment of a conservative Islamic regime and Sharia law in Pakistan, most non-religious music was discouraged. Esteemed musicians were soon out of work, having to hide their instruments away to take jobs in coffee shops or driving rickshaws.

"We were losing our instruments, losing our musicians, losing our culture - something had to be done about it," said Sachal Ensemble producer Izzat Majeed. By the early 2000s, Majeed had convened a devoted group of surviving Lahore musicians to rehearse and record privately within his Sachal Studios - to revive their tradition, to keep it alive. They made recordings of classical and folk music at first; but, with local listeners for the music having dwindled away, the group began to make music for a global audience, outside Pakistan.

As a child, Majeed had seen the Dave Brubeck Quartet when the group stopped in Lahore on a 1950s State Department "Jazz Ambassadors" tour, leading to his lifelong love of jazz. So, blending their age-old tradition with American jazz, musicians in the Sachal Studios created a YouTube sensation with an infectious version of "Take Five," the iconic Brubeck hit. Brubeck himself said of the Sachal interpretation, "It's the most interesting and different recording of 'Take Five' that I've ever heard."

A new energy and renown led to The Sachal Ensemble being invited in 2014 to collaborate in a concert with Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in New York City - an intense but ultimately jubilant experience captured in Obaid-Chinoy and Schocken's film.

Watch the trailer below!

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The Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College brings the community together to share in cultural experiences featuring the work of artists from throughout the region and around the world. Built and operated by the Los Rios Community College District, the $50 million, state-of-the-art regional performing arts center boasts three intimate venues with outstanding acoustics, an art gallery, a recording studio, elegant teaching spaces, plenty of safe parking and all the other amenities of a world-class performing arts venue. Each year the Center hosts over 400 events attracting more than 150,000 annually.

IF YOU GO:

SONG OF LAHORE FILM SCREENING

When: Sunday, October 29, 2017 at 7 pm

Where: Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College, 10 College Parkway, Folsom, CA 95630

Ticket Price: Free. Advance tickets are recommended.

Tickets: www.HarrisCenter.net

Tickets are available online at www.HarrisCenter.net or from Harris Center Ticket Office at 916-608-6888 from noon to 6 pm, Monday through Saturday, and two hours before show time.