Line-up announced for Purvai festival
AN LANNTAIR has now released the first tickets for its festival of South Asian Art and Culture.
Purvai 2017 is a signature event for Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology 2017, supported by EventScotland as part of the themed celebrations and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
This year’s Purvai festival from August 10 to 19 promises to delight audiences with an eclectic mix of concerts, workshops and exhibitions, all celebrating the South Asian culture and heritage, which is such an important part of Scotland and the Hebrides today.
The headline concert, Yatra (meaning Journey), on Friday August 18, will be a performance of a newly commissioned musical score by Dalbir Singh Rattan. Yatra will depict the journey of Stornoway-man and collector extraordinaire Colin Mackenzie (born 1754). The piece will explore traditional Gaelic vocal traditions using islanders’ songs of travel and seafaring, through to the traditional Indian raga and folk music that Mackenzie would have experienced and encountered during his travels in India.
A world-first exhibition of Mackenzie’s Collector Extraordinaire will be showing at Museum nan Eilean from August 12. Mackenzie’s is the oldest and largest collection of ancient South Asian art and comprises a remarkable range of material, including beautiful figures intricately carved in stone, thousands of drawings and sketches from across India and Java depicting ancient monuments, people and customs, maps, coins, and incredibly old and precious palm leaf manuscripts.
Items from the collection will be on loan from the British Museum, the British Library and the V&A, and exhibited at Museum nan Eilean at Lews Castle. The exhibition is sup- ported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Award-winning sitarist Roopa Panesar will be back at Purvai this year to launch the festival following her standing ovation at last year’s event. Roopa will perform with tabla virtuoso Dalbir Singh Rattan, at An Lanntair on Thursday August 10 at 8pm.
Check out her performance from An Lanntair’s Purvai 2016 – www.youtube.com/ watch? v=bttszaG-fZU
On Wednesday August 16, Kaviraj Singh Dhadyalla will perform a classical Indian music concert with the santoor, accompanied on tabla by Dalbir Singh Rattan. Combining musicality with complex rhythm, Kaviraj Singh is emerging as a unique and celebrated talent of the new generation. The youngest artist to have performed at the prestigious Darbar Festival of classical Indian music, he has shared his music widely at popular venues across India, Europe and the UK.
There will also be a packed programme of workshops and talks from artists including Kathak dance, a writers’ event with Edinburgh Book Festival, a special curator’s talk, visual and performing arts and a specially prepared children’s drumming and singing performance.
Festival passes are now available and early bird tickets. A pass for all the main stage events can be purchased for £ 30 or £25 for concessions/members, which will include all three concerts, Sona Datta talk on Mahabalipuram, New Passages writers event, Aziz Ibrahim: Artist Talk, and festival club night.
This month only, individual tickets for the three concerts will be available for a special early bird price of £9 or £ 8 for members. From July tickets will be £12/£10. The community drumming and singing performance will be free to attend.
The full festival line-up can be found at lanntair.com/purvai.