Entertainment Report :
Noted sitar player Alif Laila enchanted the audience at Indira Gandhi Culture Centre (IGCC) in the city’s Gulshan area recently. The IGCC organised the sitar recital evening as part of its regular cultural programmes.
In the programme, Alif Laila was accompanied by Rupak Bhattacharjee from India on tabla. She was trained in the Indian classical music through sitar in Dhaka by Mir Qasem Khan, nephew of the legendary maestro, Allauddin Khan.
During her final years of training, she attended the College of Fine Arts in Dhaka where she graduated in 1981 and received several awards for her watercolour paintings.
In 1988, she moved to the USA. She continued her study of Indian classical music in sitar with teachers such as Partha Chatterjee, Krishna Bhatt and Kushal Das.
Alif Laila has performed internationally at venues such as The Purcell Room, London, The Kerala Arts Society, Kerala, the National Museum of Bangladesh, Dhaka, SRA/Bengal Foundation Festival, Dhaka, the India International Center, New Delhi and the Manav Sangrahalaya in Bhopal.
Alif Laila’s DVD Hridayaragam was featured in the Women’s History Month at the Smithsonian in 2008 and Strings of Resonance was nominated for the ‘Best Classical Music Awards’ in Dhaka in 2010.
Her creative work in Indian classical music with different genres of music is epitomized in her album, I Am a River, combining sitar and jazz-saxophone.
Her latest CD is The Chakra, depicting the cycle of energy. In May 2014, she digitally released her CD, Amma, a tribute to her mother, who is an inspiration to her music and life. She has released eight Indian classical sitar CDs and two DVDs.
