A rare but remarkable concert, Sacred Sounds, is currently on a UK tour. Sacred Sounds tells some of the largely forgotten stories of British India’s role in the First World War. Inspired by an evocative photograph of Sikh soldiers performing Gurbani Kirtan or Shabads (Sikh sacred hymns) in a French barn, this live concert showcases the music that Sikh soldiers took with them to camp and battlefield. The concert explores some of the many narratives of this period – the timeless and transcendent beauty of the Shabads themselves, originally composed by Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith; the power of the letters, exchanged between Sikh soldiers and their families and the vivid individual stories they tell; the forthright and often anguished voices of the women of the Punjab through fragments of folk ballads - including a mother’s lament for a departing son; the brusque recruitment songs that the British commissioned as well as new spoken word elements.
By the end of the war the Punjab alone had contributed nearly 450,000 Muslim, Hindu and Sikh combatants and non-combatants; just under 100,000 of these were Sikhs recruited from different villages of the Punjab.
The cast features: Kirpal Singh Panesar (strings and vocals), Keertan Kaur Rehal (vocals and harmonium), Christella Litras (vocals), Ravneet Sehra (vocals and spoken word), Prabhjot Singh Gill (percussion), Joe Williams and Robert Green (spoken word), Vijay Venkat (strings).
On October 11, the partners involved in Sacred Sounds are mounting an International Conference at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The conference will explore the fascinating stories behind the making and showcasing of Sacred Sounds involving artists, historians, academics, arts administrators and above all communities of people, particularly the Sikh community.
