Ustad Amjad Ali Khan performs in a musical programme. File picture

Oct. 17: Ustad Amjad Ali Khan will perform in the city with his sons, Amaan and Ayaan, on October 27.

The sarod maestro will perform at a concert titled “Peace and Harmony” to be held at Pragjyoti ITA Centre for Performing Arts in Machkhowa as part of the year-long silver jubilee celebrations of North East Zone Cultural Centre, its director Som Kamei said. The NEZCC is an autonomous body under the Union ministry of culture. It was constituted in 1986 to preserve, innovate and promote the local art and culture of the Northeast. It is headquartered at Dimapur in Nagaland.

Assam governor J.B. Patnaik will be the chief guest and chief minister Tarun Gogoi will be the guest of honour at the event, Kamei said.

NEZCC chairman Nikhil Kumar, who is also the governor of Nagaland, will be the chief host.

“We have held folk performances across the region — from Lunglei in Mizoram, Khowai in Tripura and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh — as part of the silver jubilee celebrations,” he said.

“Since Guwahati is the most vibrant cultural city of the region, we felt that the celebrations here had to feature a celebrity of international repute. And who else could be more apt for the occasion than Ustad Amjad Ali Khan,” he said.

“The maestro has taken Indian classical music to the world and perhaps he is the only living Indian musician whose excellence has been acknowledged and appreciated in the West. In 1984, Massachusetts proclaimed April 20 as Amjad Ali Khan Day and he was given an honorary citizenship of Houston, Texas, Nashville and Tennessee in 1997 and of Tulsa and Oklahoma in 2007,” he said.

The maestro also has an Assam connection. He is married to Subhalakshmi Barooah Khan who hails from Assam.

Entry passes for the event can be collected from Shilpgram office in the city, Kamei said. The passes will be distributed free on a first-come-first-served basis.

The NEZCC’s silver jubilee celebration began in April this year at Panchkula in Haryana. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the event. “So far, celebrations have been held in five states of the Northeast. They will culminate in Dimapur in the next few months. The event is likely to be presided over by either President Pranab Mukherjee or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but we don’t have any official confirmation yet,” Kamei said.