Acclaimed Punjabi world music folk singer Kiran Ahluwalia is at R.D. Parker Collegiate's Letkemann Theatre as third performer in the City of Thompson Concert Series for 2010-11 on Tuesday night.
Ahluwalia, who was born in India, grew up mainly in Toronto, and now lives in New York City, offers a blend of fado, Saharan African blues and jazz, Ahluwalia brings a modern ghazal style into a contemporary global context. She grew up singing Sikh hymns in temple every Friday. Ahluwalia sings in Punjabi and Urdu. Ahluwalia won the 2004 Juno Award for Best World Music album.
Ghazals are Indian and Persian sung poetry, often about unrequited love. Fado is the melancholic Portuguese song form also based in poetry. She plays Portuguese guitar and accordion, as well as such Indian instruments as the tabla and sarangi.
She left India at the age of nine for Toronto. After graduating, Ahluwalia went back to India to study music eight hours a day with Padma Talwalkar.
Living back in North America, she worked as a touring manager for Putumayo artists before she started singing professionally. She released Kashish Attraction in 2001, Beyond Boundaries in 2003 and Wanderlust in 2007.
Last season, Thompson-born violinist Steven Tsitsos
kicked off the City of Thompson's concert series, followed in November 2009 by Bancroft, Ontario's Everything Fitz, led by Paddy Fitzgerald, patriarch of the percussive step dancing clan.
The Borderlanders touring quartet - made up of Canadian singer-songwriters Sylvia Tyson and Ron Hynes and their American counterparts Gretchen Peters and Graham Isaacson - wrapped up the musical portion of the City of Thompson Concert Series for 2008-09 in January 2009. That series kicked of Oct. 30, 2008 with country music star Shane Yellowbird, followed on Nov. 12, 2008 with an evening classical music program offered by pianist David Moroz and saxophonist Allen Harrington.
