Lou Majaw

Shillong, Nov. 1: When Lou Majaw sings, sleepy Shillong springs to life. Come Wednesday, the revered musician will hold centrestage in this cradle of music once again, but not to sing.

Majaw will lead a host of other luminaries, including producer Eva Kurbah, in discussing the intricacies of popular music at a seminar organised by the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication (SIMC), Pune, as part of its Footprints series.

The event, Music and All That Jazz, is being simultaneously organised in eight other places: Mumbai, New Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kochi and Hyderabad.

Munka Mishra, a member of the Symbiosis student team behind the Shillong event, said hearing musicians speaking about their music would be as pleasant an experience as seeing them perform.

The eight-member team has been in Shillong for almost a month to organise the seminar.

?The idea is to study the confluence of western and ethnic music and also find the reasons behind the growing popularity of western music,? Mishra said.

A workshop will be held on the sidelines of the main event to show how music can be used to increase awareness about AIDS. ?There is no music that does not reach out with a message. Given the omnipresent danger from AIDS, we will be focusing on how to use the medium of music to spread awareness about the disease,? said Footprints co-ordinator Patrick Santiago.

Members of the organising team spent considerable time trying to understand the music culture,both western and traditional, of the region.

?People are generally exposed to what they see. Not too many people are aware of what goes into the making of the music they hear and also see on video. Our event will be different in the sense that it will highlight the tremendous opportunities for talented people ? from making music to promoting and critically appraising it,? one of them said.

SMIC director Keval J. Kumar will participate in the event.