PERHAPS the most path-breaking British Asian music act of recent years has been the brilliant Orchestral Qawwali Project.
The culturally rich group, combining Sufi poetry with grand orchestral arrangements and a music rooted in centuries old tradition, have drawn in cross-cultural audiences of all ages with their performances.
A giant heartbeat of the act drawing a lot of attention has been lead singer Abi Sampa. She founded the group with her ace composer husband Rushil Ranjan, and together they have created a music phenomenon that has broken new creative ground.
The musical dream team have brought together diverse artists for what will be one of the grandest qawwali-led concerts ever staged in the UK, with a performance at Royal Albert Hall in London next Monday (27).
Those accompanying them will include the National Youth Chamber Choir and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
Eastern Eye caught up with great British hero Abi Sampa to discuss her journey in music, inspirations and the remarkable rise of the Orchestral Qawwali Project.How do you reflect on your journey from appearing on music reality TV show The Voice to now getting ready to perform at the Royal Albert Hall with the Orchestral Qawwali Project?
I haven’t had too much time to reflect because everything’s happened very quickly. To be honest, I have been on this journey since childhood. I was always singing spiritual music since a young age.
The Voice was just me as a young adult trying new things. But my childhood stemmed from seeking spiritual music. So, this feels much more like the path I’ve always been on.Performing with the Orchestral Qawwali Project is an absolute honour. We’re incredibly grateful and honoured that the community has supported us and are coming to see us perform live.
What first inspired you and Rushil Ranjan to start the Orchestral Qawwali Project?
I have been singing qawwali since my teens. I met Rushil in 2016. And we both had this great love for qawwali music. So, it all started off as just enjoying the music and creating together.
In 2018, Rushil and I actually put down our first recording Man Kunto Maula and a few others. Rushil always knew it was a beautiful grand style of music and wanted to find a way to reimagine it.
How did he do that?
He taught himself how to write for an orchestra, starting off with just one cello and a violin in a recording. In 2022, we were asked to perform with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He then had to teach himself how to write for an entire orchestra. He’s a musician but wasn’t taught to write for an orchestra. But just because he loves it so much, he ended up doing that learning and then it just snowballed completely out of our control.
The progression of the group has been rapid. Did you expect it to be so quick? Absolutely not. I would never ever even have imagined it to happen this quickly and to this sort of scale. I was saying to Rushil last year, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely to perform at the Royal Albert Hall one day’. I had no idea it would be happening in 2024, one year later. I suppose it’s a music that means so much to the community. The only explanation in my head is that the community has pushed this and made it what it is.
But you have pulled in cross cultural audiences in a way few south Asian led acts ever have…
Yeah. I mean, when we performed at Celtic Connections with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, I would probably say that most of the audience was white, Scottish, and they absolutely embraced and really loved it. So yeah, I suppose that’s what we are trying to do with this because we do have that cross culture within us. This is our way of expressing our culture, identity and the different things that make us who we are, in this time.
What was the experience of performing at Womad Festival, which helped turn late qawwali legend Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan into a crossover star decades ago?
I felt like I was stepping into some very, very big shoes, but it was absolutely amazing. The crowd was brilliant. It was always something I dreamed of doing because of the reputation of Nusrat performing there. It was just an honour to even be asked.
Abi Sampa
You’re surrounded by amazing artists, but is there a pressure being the focal point as the lead singer?
To be honest, not nearly as much as if you’re a complete solo singer. It’s just such a joy being on stage with all the chorus singers, musicians, band members and friends. I don’t feel like I’m a soloist in it. Even though I know I’m leading the qawwali troupe, it feels like an entire effort, being on stage with beautiful people, doing something really lovely, with a purpose. So, no, I don’t see it that way at all. It’s just always a joy.
How do you get into the spiritual like zone on stage when singing?
I don’t know if I’ll be able to put it into words properly. I think this music is so much bigger than any of us. It’s definitely bigger than me, so I just bow my head down and let this music come out. I don’t even think it’s me, really. I bow my head and let the powers that be take over, and hope it will touch people.
What can we expect from the Royal Albert Hall performance?
It’s going to be probably the biggest performance in terms of we are working with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and a 32 piece choir. It’s going to be everything, but just on a much grander scale, which is befitting of the Royal Albert Hall.
Is there any particular song you’re looking forward to performing?
It’s difficult to choose. We performed Ganj E Shakar with the CBSO at the end of last year. That’s one I really am looking forward to performing.
Everything is going to be slightly reimagined, grand and just beautiful.
How much does the fact that you are such a versatile artist help you?
Rushil has worked with many great artists like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. He said that because we grew up here, we understand western music in a slightly different way. That means we can bring the Indian classical element and weave it through western classical in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s too far. So, we can bring together everything.
I’m hoping my cultural identity means I can do both things in a way that pleases people.
Rushil Ranjan is also your husband. What’s it like working with someone you’re married to?
I’m sure we’ve made life very difficult for ourselves being married and working together on such a huge project. But it means that we can just make things as beautiful as they can be.
There’s no sort of right, this is work and I’m going home now. So, the Orchestral Qawwali Project doesn’t end. There’s no boundaries. We’re always working and striving to make it as good as we can do.
What does the future hold for the Orchestral Qawwali Project?
We are doing many different projects. Rushil and I are writing with the CBSO, brand new works, concertos, and also spinning off to do projects.
In terms of Orchestral Qawwali Project, we just hope to continue growing, so we can take it around the world and enable people to enjoy this beautiful magical art form.
And what inspires you as an artist?
All the art forms and music that I’ve ever listened to. But nothing entrances and moves me as much as qawwali music, so my biggest inspiration is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saab.
But, yes, just beautiful classical music really, in all forms from western to eastern. And now we have the pleasure of trying to bring those two together. I would say those are my inspirations, and aspirations.
What kind of music dominates your personal playlist?
Oh, that’s always a tricky one. Obviously, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I do love listening to my Bollywood and a bit of AR Rahman. In terms of English music, I love Mumford & Sons, Coldplay. I grew up listening to big ballad singers like Celine Dion.
How do you manage to generate so much emotion in your voice?
Oh, thank you. I don’t know the answer to that question. I just do what I do and hope it will move and touch people.
Why should we all come to the Royal Albert Hall show?
There hasn’t been a lot of qawwali at the Royal Albert Hall in a very long time. I think it’s been 30 years since Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan graced the venue. So, it will be just a beautiful event where all different people can come together and enjoy this beautiful art form on the grandest scale, we have ever performed it.
Why do you love music?
Oh, what is life without music?
www.royalalberthall.com www.orchestralqawwali.co
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5