Virasat: Ustad Shahid Parvez on the sitar at The Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight has to go down as one of the major musical and cultural events of 2018 for me, and the opportunity to see and hear Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, one of the “masters” of Hindustani classical music playing in Edinburgh was one not to be missed.
Ustad Shahid Parvez is considered by many to be the No 1 Sitar Player in the world today. Virasat translates to English as Heritage or Legacy.
This concert was presented to us by Indian Arts Connection as part of the Virasat (Heritage) series of Indian Classical music concerts in Edinburgh, and amazingly, this was Ustad Shahid Parvez’s first visit to Edinburgh, so let us hope it was only the first of many in the years to come.
Getting the opportunity to see and hear any musician perform on any instrument at this skill level is always something special as there always seems to be something unique happening and the instrument and musician become almost as one, the two becoming one breath almost, and the musician somehow becoming a conduit for the music itself. That is exactly what happened tonight, and it was so obvious that music, breath, life are inseparable from one another... read the rest of the review here.