Aga Khan Ensemble in Portugal: New music with deep roots

Aga Khan Ensemble to perform Navruz concerts at Portuguese Parliament, Serralves Foundation, Gulbenkian Museum and Lisbon Ismaili Centre

Leading artists on the roster of the Aga Khan Music Initiative will come together to perform a programme devoted to celebration of richness and cultural diversity, honouring Navruz, the Welcoming of the Spring. The Aga Khan Ensemble will be performing a unique repertoire to audiences at:

The Serralves Foundation 20 March, 18:50

The Parliament of Portugal 21 March, 17:50

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum 22 March, 13:00

The Ismaili Centre Lisbon 23 March, 21:45

Lisbon City Hall 24 March, 18:00

This series of performances will present a newly-created repertoire and also include education sessions and master classes by the artists of the Ensemble. The Aga Khan Ensemble is a collective of master musicians who create new music inspired by their own deep roots in the cultural heritage of the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin, South Asia, Central Asia, West Africa, and China. These master musicians are the Aga Khan Music Initiative’s leading artistic collaborators—venerated performers and composer-arrangers who appear on the world’s most prestigious stages while also serving as teachers, mentors and curators who enrich the Music Initiative’s interregional network of education programmes. Linking countries and continents, and present and past through explorations of diverse forms of classical, folk, jazz, and contemporary concert music, the ensemble contributes strongly to the Music Initiative’s mission to invigorate cultural and intellectual pluralism in the nations it serves. In forging this contribution, the Aga Khan Ensemble brings to life a new body of artistic work that is at once seamless, surprising, and exuberantly original.

“It is a great pleasure and privilege to present the Aga Khan Ensemble to audiences in Portugal,” said Fairouz Nishanova, director of the Aga Khan Music Initiative. “It is especially meaningful to do so as part of the Portuguese Parliament’s celebration of Navruz, the traditional Persian New Year celebration, which symbolises Portugal’s steadfast commitment to cultural pluralism.”

“Performing in the AKMI Ensemble has been a life-changing experience,” said Sirojiddin Juraev, a master musician from Tajikistan and long-time collaborator with the Aga Khan Music Initiative. “By working with musicians from historically-related traditions along the Silk Route, I’ve come to a deeper understanding of my own cultural heritage and its place in the contemporary world.”

The line-up of the Aga Khan Ensemble for the concert series in Portugal includes: