Mumbai-based ghazal singer Tauseef Akhtar has collaborated with Welsh folk singer Gwyneth Glyn to come up with an album that combines the two genres of music. He spoke to Divya Kaushik on similarities
Not many would know that Indian ghazals and folk music from Wales have some common elements. like ghazals, even Welsh folk music is based on poetry. It is said that the two when sung together make for a unique tunes and nobody can easily make out the difference. Mumbai-based ghazal singer Tauseef Akhtar himself was surprised by the similarity between the two. Tauseef collaborated with Welsh folk singer Gwyneth Glyn and came up with an album Ghazalaw. Tauseef and Gwyneth have been selected by WOMEX jury to perform in Cardiff in October this year. The international WOMEX will be presented over three nights, October 24 to 27, across five stages within Wales Millennium Centre and the Oval Basin. WOMEX 13 Cardiff is hosted by Cerdd Cymru: Music Wales. This is a partnership between Arts Council of Wales/ Wales Arts International and Welsh Music Foundation. It is supported by Welsh Government and British Council.
“It is an honour that we have got an opportunity to present a set from our album Ghazalaw. It is apparently for the first time that we have got a chance to present Indian ghazals at such a prestigious platform. We have known countries like Bangladesh to be fond of ghazals but now even the Western countries are showing interest in the genre. I met Ghulam Ali saab in london a few days back and he was overwhelmed that now ghazals are becoming a part of major festivals in non-Urdu speaking countries,” said Tauseef, who is presently in london but will soon return to India with his collaborated album and will approach the labels to officially release it here. “It might be a difficult task as there have been hardly any experiments or fusion done with ghazals. I just hope that ghazal lovers in India would appreciate the effort and would understand, after listening to the music, why we collaborated Welsh folk music with Indian ghazals,” stated Tauseef.
The singer informed that it was last year that he was invited by the Wales Art International and Gwyneth to discuss the music. “I met Gwyneth and got introduced to Wales Art International through a friend Donal Whelen, who is based in St Hilary, a village in Wales. The project started through discussions. We found out that like ghazals, even folk Welsh music is based on poetry. There are six artists involved with the album. Gwyneth and I are singers, there’s a harp player Georgia Ruth Williams and three Indian musicians, namely — Ashish Jha on tabla, Manas Kumar on violin and Sanjay Das on guitar. We recorded the album live in a small house in St Hillary,” informed Tauseef and added that the album was named Ghazalaw because the titles combines ghazal and alaw, which in Welsh means tunes.