WORLD MUSIC - MELODIES OF THE SOUL

X DOT 25 Music, in collaboration with the Orinda Theatre, presents an evening with celebrated vocalist Riffat Sultana— a double album-release concert marking the worldwide release of her two new albums, Melodies of the Soul and Entezar. A daughter of the legendary Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and a voice of the five-century Sham Chaurasi Gharana, Riffat Sultana carries one of the great lineages of South Asian classical and Sufi singing — a family line of master vocalists reaching back some 500 years and eleven generations. The first woman of her family to perform in public, she has shared stages and studios with artists from Ustad Zakir Hussain to Quincy Jones, and her voice moves freely between devotion and celebration: from the ecstatic qawwali and Sufi kalam of the subcontinent to the love songs and folk melodies of Punjab — sung across Urdu, Punjabi, and Persian. For this performance she leads a four-piece ensemble — Riffat Sultana (vocals), Richard Michos (guitar), Georges Lammam (violin), and Rami Ziadeh (drums) — weaving centuries-old melody into a living world-fusion sound. The first half of the evening welcomes special guest Ashkan Ghafouri, master of the Persian tar. Join us at the historic Orinda Theatre for a night where ancient tradition meets contemporary sound.

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