The world speaks to me in colours, my soul answers in music.
What We Do
Our Mission Today
For the Artists
- Restoring their rightful place in society
- Increasing opportunities for training and skill development of the artist
- Providing platforms of exposure for traditional practitioners
For the Audience
- Inclusive exposure of traditional performing arts for public to ensure sustainability of cultural diversity
- Cultivating awareness of traditional art forms
- Production of accessible material on the traditional performing arts
All music is the sound of His laughter.
Shri Aurobindo
Our Activities
Takkiya Recitals:
APMC Karachi keeps our traditional music & dance alive by organizing events throughout the year to showcase the talent and skill of practitioners from all over Pakistan, as well as, overseas.
The Takkiya calendar is filled with baethaks, film-screenings, the NauTarang student platform, our Annual Festival, which takes place in March, and more. All of these free & public events provide the wider community an opportunity to connect with the rich cultural performing arts of this land.
Murki Youth Engagement Initiative:
The Murki Initiative engages with youth to nurture a future community that values its cultural heritage and actively works to preserve it, in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of traditional music and dance.
At present, the Initiative has three ongoing modules:
- Ta’arruf – Introduction to Eastern Music:
The basic concepts of our musical traditions are revealed to students through a 5-session module, featuring interactive activities, a workbook, performances, lecture-demonstrations and presentations aided by audio-visual references. - Saaz-baaz – Instruments Immersive:
Offers a hands-on experience of string, wind & percussion instruments, conducted by instrument practitioners. Participants develop an understanding of form, structure and the sound production of various instruments. - Sur-taal – Explorations in Music:
An opportunity for students to learn directly from established practitioners, who perform before them and interactively explain the creative process.
In the beginning, your Ustad teaches you; thereafter, your instrument teaches you. You have to work equally hard with both of them.
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar
Developing An Archive For The Future
APMC Karachi regularly records performances and conversations with various artists. These recordings are preserved for posterity and are made accessible on all our social media handles.
Our living Masters are repositories of an invaluable oral history, who provide the last remaining link to a once thriving classical and folk music tradition. Unfortunately, very little material on our inherited traditions of music and dance, outside of performances (which in themselves are too few) remains today.
Documenting our music and dance legacy, the artistic stature of the Masters, as well as the history of our artistic traditions serves as a bridge to the musical landscape of current times. The documentation, through intimate interviews and masterclass baithaks etc., where the Masters speak about their art; their journey in it, relationship to their art form, insights and learning along the way, interesting anecdotes, etc., aims to save the nuances of these fast disappearing traditions for future generations.
Only that art can live which is an active manifestation of the life of the people. It must be a necessary and essential portion of that life, and not a luxury.
Ernest Bloch