Manchester International Festival Announces Artists for Sangam 2017

A one-off concert bringing together two of Sufi music's brightest female stars, Sanam Marvi from Pakistan and Harshdeep Kaur from India, performing together for the first time as part of Manchester International Festival.

This very special evening celebrates the opening of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's film installation HOME1947, marking 70 years since the partition of British India.

Regarded as one of the foremost Sufi singers in the world, Sanam Marvi lives in Lahore, Pakistan. Marvi sings in qawwali style and is one of the few women, along with Abida Parveen, to perform in this way.

Harshdeep Kaur is a celebrity in India, singing in Bollywood films since 2003. The Delhi-born artist won the 2008 TV Singing Reality Show 'Junoon', which led Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan to describe her as the "Queen of Sufi". Harshdeep Kaur will perform with her band, featuring a mix of traditional and contemporary sounds.

Following individual performances these two incredible stars of Sufi will come together in a joyful fusion set. In partnership with BBC Asian Network, presenter and DJ, Noreen Khan, will host the event.

"We are honoured to welcome two of the greatest stars of Sufi music to MIF17, performing together for the first time. This performance by Sanam Marvi and Harshdeep Kaur, which also marks the opening of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's extraordinary new work, HOME1947, is a fitting celebration of the remarkable creativity and rich cultures of South Asia, on the 70th anniversary of independence." John McGrath, Artistic Director, Manchester International Festival

Sangam 2017
Sat 1 July, 7.30pm
The Lowry
Tickets £25 - £45 / £12 for Greater Manchester residents on a lower wage
From www.mif.co.uk 0843 208 1840

Tickets on sale to MIF members at 9am, Thursday 11 May
Tickets on sale to general public at 1pm, Thursday 11 May

Produced by Manchester International Festival.

Sanam Marvi was born in 1986 in the small city of Hyderabad in Sindh, Pakistan. By age seven, she began singing with her father, Faqir Ghulam Rasool, during festivals and ceremonies held at shrines throughout Pakistan's Sindh and Punjab provinces. She continued her studies under noted gurus, including Ustad Fateh Ali Khan at the Gwailor gharana (school). Her breakout performance on Pakistan's national television in 2009 made her a rising star and since then her persuasive and revelatory interpretations of the subcontinent's mystic and humanist poetries have crossed cultural borders and generations to offer solace in our uncertain and often troubled times. She has toured widely around the world, and has been featured many times on Pakistan's popular Coke Studio. She is the subject of Marvi: The Mystic Muse, a documentary by Tanya Panjwani (2016), which has been screened at festivals in Toronto and Pakistan.

Harshdeep Kaur was born in 1986 into a Sikh family in Delhi, inheriting music from her father, Savinder Singh, who owns a factory of musical instruments. She started learning music at the age of six. She learnt Indian classical music from Mr. Tejpal Singh and Western classical music from the Delhi Music Theatre. Later, at the age of twelve, she joined the Delhi School of Music to learn piano. Harshdeep is famous for her Sufi genre songs. She has featured in Coke Studio (India) on MTV in all the four seasons. In April 2013 she headlined the Alchemy Festival at the Southbank Centre in London and the Mosaic Festival in Mississauga in 2013. She performed alongside Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan in 2014 at the MTV Unplugged Live in Dubai. She has performed with the Legendary Composer AR Rahman on his Jai Ho World Tour all across USA, UK, UAE and South Africa. She has shared stages with the best composers in India such as Pritam Chakroborty, Amit Trivedi, Salim-Sulaiman, Vishal-Shekhar and many more.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a two-time Academy Award and an Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker. In the past 16 years, she has made over a dozen multi-award winning films in over 10 countries around the world. Her films include Girl in the river, Song of Lahore, Saving Face, Peace Keepers, Transgenders: Pakistan's Open Secret and Pakistan's Taliban Generation. Her work has aired on channels spanning 4 continents including, HBO, CNN, PBS, Channel 4, CBC, Arte, SBS and the Discovery channel.

In 2012, Time Magazine included Sharmeen in their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. That same year the Pakistan Government awarded her with their highest civil honor "Hilal -e-Imtiaz ".

In 2013, the Canadian government awarded her a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work in the field of documentary films and the World Economic Forum honored her with a Crystal Award at their annual summit in Davos.

In 2017, Sharmeen was the first artist to co-chair the "World Economic Forum" at Davos.

Manchester International Festival (MIF) is the world's first festival of original, new work and special events, staged every two years in Manchester, UK. MIF launched in 2007 as an artist-led festival presenting new works from across the spectrum of performing arts, visual arts and popular culture. MIF has commissioned, produced and presented world premieres by artists including Björk, Steve McQueen, Robert Wilson, Wayne McGregor, Maxine Peake, The xx, Zaha Hadid Architects, Abida Parveen, Damon Albarn, Punchdrunk, Elbow and Marina Abramovi?.

MIF brings together world-renowned artists from different art forms and backgrounds to create dynamic, innovative and forward-thinking new work, staged in venues across Greater Manchester - from theatres, galleries and concert halls to railway depots, churches and car parks. MIF works closely with venues, festivals and other cultural organisations around the world, whose financial and creative input helps to make many of these projects possible. The Festival also works widely within communities around Manchester, originally with MIF Creative and now with a new initiative called My Festival.

MIF's Artistic Director and CEO is John McGrath, previously the Founding Artistic Director of National Theatre Wales. Earlier this year, MIF was confirmed as the operator of Factory, a new £110 million cultural centre in Manchester due to open in 2020.

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