Music
Shironamhin to celebrate silver jubilee with year-long festivities
Shironamhin, a triumphant band in the Bangladeshi music industry, is going to celebrate its silver jubilee this year with multiple activities and concerts across the country and also in Mumbai, India.
The band, known for their enormously popular albums like “Jahaji,” “Bondho Janala” and more, stepped into its silver jubilee in April, last year. The celebrations, however, were put on hold given the global coronavirus outbreak situation.
This year, Shironamhin has planned a year-long event schedule in collaboration with marketing communication agency Brandmyth Experiential, formerly known as Brandmyth Communication.
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As part of the planned celebrations, Shironamhin will collaborate with the Mumbai-based Symphony Orchestra team which has previously collaborated with world famous music bands including Metallica, Scorpions and more.
Mourning starts as Houston officials probe concert deaths
Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd.
Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn’t breathe.
Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scott’s set, things got “really crazy” and people began crushing one another. He said he “was picking people up and trying to drag them out.”
Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground.
Read:Houston leaders seek clues for concert mishap that killed 8
“I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head,” he said.
Over the weekend, a makeshift memorial of flowers, votive candles, condolence notes and T-shirts took shape outside at NRG Park.
Michael Suarez, 26, visited the growing memorial after the concert.
”It’s very devastating. No one wants to see or hear people dying at a festival,” Suarez said. “We were here to have a good time — a great time — and it’s devastating to hear someone lost their lives.”
The dead, according to friends and family members, included a 14-year-old high school student; a 16-year-old girl who loved dancing; and a 21-year-old engineering student at the University of Dayton. The youngest was 14, the oldest 27.
Houston officials did not immediately release the victims’ names or the cause of death, but family and friends began to name their loved ones and tell their stories Sunday.
Thirteen people remained hospitalized Sunday. Their conditions were not disclosed. Over 300 people were treated at a field hospital at the concert.
City officials said they were in the early stages of investigating what caused the pandemonium at the sold-out Astroworld festival, an event founded by Scott. About 50,000 people were there.
Authorities said that among other things, they will look at how the area around the stage was designed.
Julio Patino, of Naperville, Illinois, who was in London on business when he got a middle-of-the-night call informing him his 21-year-old son Franco was dead, said he had a lot of questions about what happened.
“These concerts should be controlled,” Patino said. “If they don’t know how to do that, they should have canceled the concert right then, when they noticed there was an overcrowd.” He added: “They should not wait until they see people laying down on the floor, lifeless.”
Steven Adelman, vice president of the industry group Event Safety Alliance, which was formed after the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair in 2011 killed seven people, helped write industry guidelines widely used today.
He said investigators will examine the design of the safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators. He said, too, that authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage.
Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs.
“Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, that’s really bad-looking,” he said. “But as for what it tells us, it’s too early to say.”
Read:8 dead, several injured at Astroworld Festival in Houston
Contemporary Services Corp., headquartered in Los Angeles, was responsible for security staff at the festival, according to county records in Texas. Representatives for the company — which advertises online as being “recognized worldwide as the pioneer, expert and only employee owned company in the crowd management field” — did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment.
Houston police and fire department officials said their investigation will include reviewing video taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as dozens of clips from people at the show.
Officials also planned to review the event’s security plan and various permits issued to organizers to see whether they were properly followed. In addition, investigators planned to speak with Live Nation representatives, Scott and concertgoers.
Izabella Ramirez of Texas City was celebrating her 21st birthday and said that once Scott came on stage, no one could move.
“Everybody was squishing in, and people were trying to move themselves to the front. You couldn’t even lift up your arms,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said a security guard pulled her over the barricade, while her date, Jason Rodriguez, lifted her up.
“Everyone was yelling for different things. They were either yelling for Travis or they were yelling for help,” Rodriguez said.
On video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: “Security, somebody help real quick.”
There is a long history of similar catastrophes at concerts, sporting events and even religious events. In 1979, 11 people were killed as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum to see a concert by The Who. Other past crowd catastrophes include the deaths of 97 people at a soccer match in Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 in Sheffield, England, and numerous disasters connected with the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowd surges say they are often a result of too many people packed into too small a space.
Also Sunday, at least two of the first of many expected lawsuits were filed on behalf of a man injured in the crush of people in state court in Houston. Attorneys for Manuel Souza sued Scott, Live Nation and others, saying they were responsible. Another lawsuit was filed on behalf of Noah Gutierrez by Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed by police.
In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was “absolutely devastated by what took place.” He pledged to work “together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”
ABBA back after 40 years with new album, virtual stage show
ABBA is releasing its first new music in four decades, along with a concert performance that will see the “Dancing Queen” quartet going entirely digital.
The forthcoming album “Voyage,” to be released Nov. 5, is a follow-up to 1981′s “The Visitors,” which until now had been the swan song of the Swedish supergroup. And a virtual version of the band will begin a series of concerts in London on May 27.
“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” ABBA said in a statement Thursday. “They say it’s foolhardy to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we’ve recorded a follow-up to ‘The Visitors."
Also read: Grammy-winning folk singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith dies
The group has been creating the live show with George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic. They say the virtual versions of themselves are “weird and wonderful,” and go beyond holograms.
“It was suggested to us that we could go on tour as a hologram. And this is now four, five years ago,” Björn Ulvaeus, ABBA’s 76-year-old guitarist, backup singer and co-songwriter said at a news conference Thursday. “And we found out very soon that that wasn’t even possible because holograms is an old technology, but I mean, the vision was there of having our digital selves, that even was a possibility.”
“And also,” said Benny Andersson, 74, who plays keyboards, sings and writes songs with Ulvaeus, “we want to do it before we were dead.”
Ulvaeus added, ”it’s good if you do that before you dead. Because it gets more accurate then.”
They sang and played together for hours every day for weeks, using motion capture and other techniques to create the 22-song, approximately 90-minute show.
“We dressed up in a leotards with dots or little things on them,” Ulvaeus said. “And we had dots in our faces and helmets with cameras. And there we were, the four of us on stage together doing these songs.”
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They say it was hard work but a great pleasure, but for one thing.
“I’d say the only big problem was that we had to shave our beards,” Andersson said. “I’ve had my beard for 50 years.”
The planned show spurred the making of the album, which features the new songs “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down.” It began with sessions in 2018 and was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was so joyful to be together in the studio again, the four of us,” Andersson said.”
The show will come 50 years after the founding of the group that consisted of two married couples for most of its existence, and whose name is an acronym of the first names of its members, Agnetha Fältskog, 71, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75, Ulvaeus and Andersson.
Their music has remained ubiquitous in the decades since their breakup, in part because of the stage musical “Mamma Mia!” and the two films that followed it.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Last week the group launched a website with the title “ ABBA Voyage,” teasing the new announcement. Tickets go on sale Tuesday.
Sanyat’s 2nd single ‘You and Me’ awaits global release
Sanyat Sattar’s second single, ‘You and Me’,will be released on global platforms on August 29.
He wrote the lyrics and composed the music in the duet featuring Sarah Billah.
“I had the track and music ready and was looking for a duet partner. Coincidentally, my friend Sarah was in Bangladesh, and I requested her to join me,” he said.
Sarah, an accomplished singer herself, has sung many Bengali songs. ‘You and Me’ is her first one in English.
When the music stops: Afghan ‘happy place’ falls silent
A few years after the Taliban were ousted in 2001, and with Afghanistan still in ruins, Ahmad Sarmast left his home in Melbourne, Australia, on a mission: to revive music in the country of his birth.
The school he founded was a unique experiment in inclusiveness for the war-ravaged nation — with orphans and street kids in the student body, it sought to bring a measure of joy back to Kabul. The Taliban had notoriously banned music.
Last week, he watched in horror from his home in Melbourne images of the Taliban taking over the Afghan capital, capping a lightning offensive that restored the religious militia to power and stunned the world.
Sarmat’s two mobile phones haven’t stopped ringing since. Many of the calls are from panicked students asking him what happens next. Will the school be closed? Would the Taliban outlaw music again? Are their treasured instruments safe?
Read:Afghan woman gives birth on US evacuation flight
“I’m heartbroken,” Sarmast told The Associated Press. “It was so unexpected and so unpredictable that it was like an explosion, and everyone was caught by surprise,” he said of the Taliban takeover.
Sarmast had left Kabul on July 12 for his summer holiday, never imagining that just few weeks later the whole project and everything he’d worked for the past 20 years would be endangered. He’s terrified for his 350 students and 90 faculty, many of whom have already gone into hiding. Reports of Taliban searching for adversaries door-to-door have fanned their worries.
“We are all very, very fearful about the future of music, we are very fearful about our girls, about our faculty,” he said. Sarmast, who spoke in a Zoom interview, requested that additional details about the students and school not be published, because he did not want to endanger them.
In a sign of what the future holds, radio and TV stations stopped broadcasting music, except for Islamic songs — though it was not clear if the change in programming was a result of Taliban edicts or an effort by the stations to avoid potential problems with the insurgents.
Sarmast, 58, the son of a famous Afghan composer and conductor, had sought asylum in Australia in the 90s, a time of civil war in Afghanistan.
In 1996, the Taliban swept into power. The ultra-religious movement banned music as sinful, with the sole exception being some religious vocal pieces. Cassette tapes were ripped apart and strung from trees.
But after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Islamists, Sarmast dreamed of renewal. After obtaining a doctorate in musicology, he returned to Afghanistan and in 2010 founded the Afghanistan National Institute of Music.
Read:7 Afghans killed in chaos at Kabul airport
Donations from foreign governments and private sponsors soon poured in. The World Bank gave a cash grant of 2 million U.S. dollars. Almost 5 tons of musical equipment — violins, pianos, guitars and oboes — were trucked in, a gift from the German government and the German Society of Music Merchants. Students learned to play traditional Afghan string instruments like the rubab, sitar and sarod. The tabla drum was among the favorites.
“It was such an amazing school, everything was perfect,” said Elham Fanous, 24, who was the first student to graduate from the music institute in 2014, after spending seven years at the school.
“It changed my life and I really owe it to them,” he said of the school, which he describes as Afghanistan’s LaGuardia, a public high school in New York specialized in teaching music and arts. A visitor once called it “Afghanistan’s happy place.”
“I cannot believe this is happening,” Fanous added, speaking from New York, where he recently received his master’s degree in piano from the Manhattan School of Music. He was also the first student from Afghanistan to be admitted to a U.S. university music program.
The institute’s musicians traveled all over the world to represent their country, presenting a different face for a place known in the West only for war and extremism. Fanous himself performed at concerts in Poland, Italy and Germany.
In 2013, the institute’s youth orchestra embarked on its first U.S. tour, appearing at the Kennedy Center and selling out Carnegie Hall. Members of the orchestra included a girl who not long before had sold chewing gum on the streets of Kabul. An all-female orchestra called Zohra, named after a goddess of music in Persian literature, was set up in 2015.
In 2014, Sarmast was attending a concert in the auditorium of a French-run high school in Kabul when a huge bomb went off. He partially lost hearing in one ear and has had numerous operations to remove shrapnel from the back of his head since. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, accusing him in a statement of corrupting Afghanistan’s youth.
That only increased his determination, and he continued to split his time between running the school in Kabul, and Australia, where his family lives.
Read: Afghanistan situation remains extremely fluid: UN
Today, he aches when he thinks of the melodies once echoing down the school corridors and the lives of boys and girls now being upended.
“We’re all shattered, because my kids, they’ve been dreaming. They had huge dreams to be on the biggest stage of the world,” Sarmast said. “All my students had been dreaming of a peaceful Afghanistan. But that peaceful Afghanistan is fading away.”
Still, he hangs on to hope, believing young Afghans will resist. He is also counting on the international artistic community to put up a fight for the Afghans’ right to music.
“I’m still hopeful that my kids will be allowed to go back to the school and continue and to enjoy from learning and playing music,” he said.
Britney Spears’ dad will exit conservatorship, but not yet
Britney Spears’ father said in a court filing Thursday that he is planning to step down from the conservatorship that has controlled her life and money for 13 years, but his departure is not imminent.
James Spears filed legal documents saying that while there are no grounds for his removal, he will step down after several lingering issues are resolved. The document gives no timetable for his resignation from his role helping oversee his daughter’s finances.
“Mr. Spears continues to serve dutifully, and he should not be suspended or removed, and certainly not based on false allegations,” the filing said. “Mr. Spears is willing to step down when the time is right, but the transition needs to be orderly and include a resolution of matters pending before the Court.”
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Those matters include the next judicial review of the pop singer’s finances, which has been delayed by months of public and legal wrangling over James’ Spears role and the legitimacy of the conservatorship by Britney Spears and, in recent weeks, her new attorney.
The documents say that James Spears has been “the unremitting target of unjustified attacks” but “he does not believe that a public battle with his daughter over his continuing service as her conservator would be in her best interests.”
The filing says James Spears will fight the petition to force him out, but will work with the court and Britney Spears’ attorney Matthew Rosengart on the next phases.
“We are pleased that Mr. Spears and his lawyer have today conceded in a filing that he must be removed,” Rosengart said in a statement. “It is vindication for Britney.”
Spears said he was working on a plan to give up his role from before his daughter hired Rosengart last month.
For most of the existence of the conservatorship, which was established in 2008, James Spears oversaw his daughter’s personal affairs and money. In 2019, he stepped down as the so-called conservator of her person, and maintained control of her finances.
Also read: How conservatorships like Britney Spears’ work
He was nevertheless the target of much of his daughter’s ire in a pair of speeches before the court in June and July, in which she called the conservatorship “abusive.” Spears in her June remarks said she had been required to use an intrauterine device for birth control, take medications against her will and prevented from getting married, having another child or even riding in her boyfriend’s car unsupervised.
“This conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good,” the 39-year-old Spears said at the time. “I deserve to have a life.”
James Spears, 69, was fighting to remain in control in court filings as recently as last week. He said the allegations in his daughter’s testimony are “untested,” need investigation, and involve issues that have long been out of his control.
He suggested that Jodi Montgomery, who took over for him as conservator of Britney Spears’ personal affairs, deserved scrutiny if her allegations were accurate.
Rosengart said that while he welcomed the new move, he will not take the pressure of James Spears, who should not wait to step down.
“We look forward to continuing our vigorous investigation into the conduct of Mr. Spears, and others, over the past 13 years, while he reaped millions of dollars from his daughter’s estate, and I look forward to taking Mr. Spears’s sworn deposition in the near future,” Rosengart’s statement said. “In the interim, rather than making false accusations and taking cheap shots at his own daughter, Mr. Spears should remain silent and step aside immediately.”
Even after James Spears’ departure, the court will maintain the same control over Britney Spears that is has since the conservatorship was put in place in 2008. But he has been a lightning rod for the ire of fans in the #FreeBritney movement, whose voice have become increasingly prominent as they have been embraced by Britney Spears and Rosengart.
And Rosengart has marked James Spears’ departure as a necessary first step before ending the arrangement entirely.
The new filing adamantly defends the work of James Spears and the conservatorship, and pushes back especially against allegations made by Britney Spears’ mother Lynne Spears in a recent declaration.
Also read: Britney Spears tells judge: ‘I want my life back’
“When this Conservatorship was initiated 13 years ago, Britney Jean Spears was in crisis, desperately in need of help. Not only was she suffering mentally and emotionally, she was also being manipulated by predators and in financial distress,” the documents say. “Mr. Spears came to his daughter’s rescue to protect her, and this Court made the determination that the protection provided by a conservatorship was necessary and in Ms. Spears’ best interests.”
The documents say that Lynne Spears was wrong in criticizing the hiring of a psychiatrist that she said James Spears chose for their daughter, and in saying that medications he prescribed were inappropriate.
The doctor was actually chosen by Britney Spears herself, and had the approval of Montgomery, her medical team, and Britney Spears’ previous attorney, the filing says. This same group, including the singer herself, approved of the medication the doctor prescribed, the filing says.
It also criticizes Lynne Spears assuming a role at all, saying she is someone Britney Spears “has avoided speaking with for most of her adult life.”
From the Beatles to Elton John: Oldest DJ’s storied career
Ray Cordeiro considers himself the luckiest radio DJ in the world.
In a storied career spanning over 70 years in Hong Kong, Cordeiro has interviewed superstars including the Beatles and Elton John, and even received an MBE — an order of the British empire for outstanding achievement or service to the community — from Queen Elizabeth.
Cordeiro, who holds the Guinness world record for the world’s longest-working DJ, retired last month at the age of 96.
“I’ve been talking all my life about music and all, and I’d never thought that I would retire. I never thought that I was getting older,” he said.
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Cordeiro was born in 1924 in Hong Kong and is of Portuguese descent. His musical tastes as a child were influenced by his brother who was 10 years older and collected records from groups like the Mills Brothers and the Andrews Sisters.
Back then records were breakable, Cordeiro said.
“When he’s not home and I played his records, I had to be very, very careful, because if I broke it he would get awfully angry,” Cordeiro said. “I grew up with his music.”
In his youth, Cordeiro worked as a warden at a local prison and a clerk at an HSBC bank. His love for music eventually led him to pursue a career in radio, where he joined public broadcaster Radio Hong Kong, now known as Radio Television Hong Kong.
It was during a three-month study course in London with the BBC in 1964 that Cordeiro landed the interview that kickstarted his career — with the Beatles, the biggest band in the world at the time.
He had some free time after the end of the course before he had to return to Hong Kong and didn’t want to “sit around for two weeks doing nothing.”
“So I said, why don’t I grab the chance of finding some peeps, some pop groups or singers that I can interview and bring back (tapes) to Hong Kong,” he said.
During those two weeks, Cordeiro traveled to venues where groups were performing and interviewed them afterward.
The Beatles had become wildly popular and Cordeiro wanted to interview them the most. Armed with a notebook and a pen, he went to the offices of the band’s record label, EMI, to ask for an interview with the group.
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By a stroke of luck, he was told to return the next day for an interview, with EMI loaning him a tape recorder for it. He bought a magazine with a picture of the Beatles on the cover and took it with him to the interview, and got all the members to autograph it.
“Altogether I have some 26 signatures of all the Beatles, and it’s probably worth a fortune,” he said.
IPDC Finance Ltd wins Intellectual Property Protection Award 2021
IPDC Finance Limited has been awarded Intellectual Property Protection Award 2021 for its contribution to protect and present Bangla Folk music to the youth.
The award was announced in an online seminar on the importance of copyright on protecting intellectual property to celebrate International Copyright Day organized by the Bangladesh Copyright Office, according to a press release.
State minister for the Ministry of Cultural Affairs K M Khaled was present as the guest. Managing Director, and CEO of IPDC Mominul Islam represented IPDC Finance.
Also read: IPDC: Mominul Islam re-appointed MD, CEO for 4th time
Cultural Affairs secretary M Badrul Arefin, Department of Patent, Design & Trademarks secretary Md. Abdus Sattar, additional secretary of Ministry of Cultural Affairs and president of copyright board Shabiha Pervin and registrar Bangladesh Copyright Office Jafor Raja Chowdhury also attended the program.
The ministry has taken this initiative to attract creative personalities, intellectuals, eminent artistes, writers, and those closely involved in creative activities in the education and research profession.
IPDC has been awarded for its cautious effort of preventing the oblivious extinction of folk music and rekindle admiration among the younger generation.
Read IPDC Finance donates Tk 2 crore to PM’s Relief and Welfare Fund
"With IPDC Amader Gaan, we have taken the initiative; however, our culture is glorious. I invite all to come forward and enrich this native culture. As we are economically advancing, our culture will be an asset for us; we must preserve it,” said MD and CEO of IPDC Finance Moninul Islam
To promote Bangladeshi folk music globally, IPDC Finance Limited created a virtual platform, 'IPDC Amader Gaan,' in September last year.
Since its inception, the platform has released nine folk songs on its YouTube channel with the same title.
Also read: IPDC, BSCMS launch ‘Bangladesh Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2020’
The platform exclusively features diverse musical influences and offers studio-recorded performances by promising singers of the country.
Penned by several mystic bards, including Fakir Lalon Shah, Shah Abdul Karim, and Palli Kabi Jasimuddin, several covers received unparalleled popularity.
The channel alone has got 10M+ views, while the total views of the songs of 'IPDC Amader Gaan' on different channels of Youtube and Facebook have exceeded 100M.
Read 'Folk Empress' Momotaz conferred honorary doctorate by Indian university
'Folk Empress' Momotaz conferred honorary doctorate by Indian university
Momotaz Begum, leading Bangladeshi folk singer and MP, has been conferred an honorary doctorate by an Indian university.
According to a post on her Facebook page on Monday night, the singer received this honorary degree from Global Human Peace University in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu for her contributions to folk music in her three-decade-long career.
"Momotaz Begum has been awarded the prestigious 'Doctor of Music' by the university's founder and chairperson Dr P Manuel on April 10. The degree was presented to her, honoring her career and legacy for numerous achievements such as being the only music artist with a world record of 800 music albums, playing her role as a singer through upholding the pride of Bengali music in front of the entire world, popularising folk music in the society, achieving multiple National Awards in Bangladesh and engaging in many socio-cultural activities," the post read.
Apart from enthralling Bangladeshi audiences the world over for the past 30 years, Momotaz Begum has also been actively engaged in politics since 2009. She is currently serving as a Jatiya Sangsad member representing the ruling party from the Manikganj-2 constituency.
Creative Media Industry Skills Council launched
The National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) Wednesday launched the Creative Media Industry Skills Council (CMISC) for creative skills training and development.