An Exciting Year For Asian Arts Agency – 2018 highlights

As the year draws to a close, we present some of our 2018 highlights.

Our concerts this year included slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya, Bollywood Queen Harshdeep Kaur, Sufi Sisters Hashmat Sultana and Brooklyn’s finest Dhol n’ Bass band, Red Baraat. We also toured our new commission PunjabTronix internationally.

We championed the creative case for diversity with our diverse programming reaching more venues and communities around the UK. Through our digital work we reached over 1 million people online!

We would like to thank each one of our audiences, artists and partners for the support and wish you all the best for 2019.

We have put together some 2018 highlights for you to enjoy.

SXSW Music Festival and USA Tour

In March, PunjabTronix, our new international commission, was invited to showcase at the prestigious SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. We also took the project to Boston, New York City and the world renowned Kennedy Center, Washington DC.

Watch PunjabTronix perform at The Kennedy Center:

CONCERTS WITH HARSHDEEP KAUR

We produced Bollywood and Sufi singer Harshdeep Kaur’s debut solo UK concerts, at London’s Barbican Centre and Town Hall Birmingham. The concerts received standing ovations and high profile media coverage, including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.

Harshdeep Kaur performs poignant classic, Lambi Judai:

Watch Harshdeep Kaur performing more classics at her UK concerts!

HASHMAT SULTANA AT WOMAD FESTIVAL

We brought the rising stars of Punjabi music, Hashmat Sultana, over to the UK this summer, for UK audiences to experience their talent, with two performances at WOMAD Festival. Both shows attracted big crowds and the long queues at the CD signing tents suggest Hashmat Sultana have now got many fans in the UK too.

Watch Hashmat Sultana perform on the WOMAD stage:

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN BRISTOL

This autumn we worked with 60 young people in Bristol, supporting music and dance workshops, which led to performances at Rhythm Utsav 2018. The student performances featured before and after a wonderful new creative collaboration between Roopa Panesar (sitar), Jesse Bannister (saxophone), Kousic Sen (tabla) and R N Prakash (Carnatic Percussionist).

Watch Masters of percussion Kousic Sen (tabla) and RN Prakash (Ghatam) demonstrate their skill at Rhythm Utsav 2018:

LOOKING AHEAD | ANNOUNCED SO FAR IN 2019

New York, globalFEST showcase – January 2019

We are presenting the Hindustani slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya at New York’s prestigious industry showcase, globalFEST, on 6th January, with plans to tour the guitar maestro in the UK in 2019.

RIZWAN-MUAZZAM UK TOUR

We have now announced full tour dates for our March 2019 UK tour with Pakistan’s Qawwali maestros Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali.

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