Featured on BBC Urdu and Dawn
I really love what [Save the Sitar] is doing … keep up the good work!
Kuljit Bhamra MBE, British composer and tabla player
And what these two young gentlemen are doing is fantastic. So I just think it’s wonderful—it gives me hope for the future.
Lowell Lybarger, tabla player and instructor Arkansas Tech University
Save the Sitar is an exciting project. May it grow and gain support from a wide readership! Muneeb and Mubeen Irfan Chaudhary’s enthusiasm is infectious. The project is so worthy: interviews with nearly forgotten players and craftsmen; ideas on how to approach and hear rag music anew; appreciations of lesser known classical instruments. And most of all its outreach to young listeners. It’s time that the traditions of classical music in Pakistan be rediscovered and take a deserved place in the global reach of rag music.
Allyn Miner, sitarist & Faculty Emerita University of Pennsylvania
When I met Muneeb and Mubeen, it warmed my heart to see young men who felt passion [for Pakistan’s classical music] and had the sensitivity to identify that it is something beautiful that needs to be saved.
Sarah Zaman, classical singer & musicologist National College of Arts Lahore
Journeying through the Old City of Lahore, the heart of Punjab, you are bombarded by an assortment of noises and smells. The calls of vendors in the bazaar, the smell of fresh-cooked naan, the clink of coins as they are dropped into the merchant’s hand, they all lure you out on the street. Yet in this colorful background, something is missing. Where is the music? That’s where we come in. Save the Sitar aims to create a thriving culture of Pakistani classical music that will remain true to its roots while having a strong worldwide presence. Lofty goals aside, what have we achieved so far? What is our detailed mission statement? What’s our history and who are we?
Learn more about us and how you can help us further our cause!
Check Out Our Latest Posts
The Taus
Most instruments, though definitely not ugly (just look at the sitar) are more made for function, rather than form. The taus (Persian for peacock) however, seems to have been made with the opposite purpose in mind. Just look at it!…
A Foreword for the Sitar Gharanas of Pakistan
Dr. Lowell Lybarger is a tabla player and the current director of the Music Lab at the Arkansas Tech University. He has also been a visiting professor at the NCA, where he was a mentor to Ali Ayub. He inspired…
Professor Allyn Miner’s Review of the Sitar Gharanas of Pakistan
Allyn Miner is a professor emeritus in the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a sitar player and the author of Sitar and Sarod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1997) and the Minqar-i Musiqar: Hazrat Inayat…
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