Sindh Minister for Culture Sassui Palijo has said that old glories of Sindhi music would be revived by its patronisation and promotion. This she said while addressing inaugural ceremony of Mehran Music School at the auditorium of Mehran Arts Council Latifabad Hyderabad on Thursday evening.
Addressing a sizeable gathering, she said Sindh was very much rich with the Art and Culture and possesses good potential in this field but unfortunately it was lacking the effective learning institutions for the young generation. She said a project for promotion and patronising of art and music had been conceived by the Sindh Culture Department at the cost of Rs 12.961 million with the financial assistance of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BBSYDP) which has been made functional from Thursday under the title of Mehran Music School at Mehran Arts Council Hyderabad.
She said that to achieve the targets, provincial Culture Department had signed an agreement with the Centre Of Excellence in Arts & Design (CEAD) Mehran University of Engineering & Technology Jamshoro for certification. She said this certification was an important feature of this programme, because the trainees of this project would be able to find jobs on the basis of this certification easily.
Giving the features of the project of Mehran Music School, she said that as many as 200 talented youths would be further trained in different trades of performing art and culture, which included 100 in vocal music, 70 in instrumental music and 30 in folk dance. These trainees would be imparted at Mehran Arts Council in collaboration with SUR Society and certification is to be made by CEAD - MUET Jamshoro.
She said Mehran School of Music was aimed at serving the art and artists without any discrimination and it would not be run only on linguistic basis, because art could not been confined within boundaries and limits. She said to ensure merit and transparency, advertisement was floated in Sindhi, Urdu and English newspapers and selection committee had been formed to select the faculty and trainees before launching this project to hunt talent from each segment of society on merit, adding each individual had been selected purely on merit basis.
She announced that stipend of Rs 2,500 would be given to each trainee and those who came from other cities would be paid another Rs 1,500 per month. She said today in the revolutionary era of information technology, foreign influence on our art & music was being commonly witnessed as such it was the high time to protect, preserve and promote our original and indigenous music of Sindh.
She said Provincial Culture Department was also working on other projects such as heritage studio, to preserve the old art, culture and Sindhi folk literature of Sindh. She said BBSYDP was aimed at enhancing capacity building and skill development of youths in each field so that they could earn their livelihood easily on one hand and to have qualitative work force for all institutions on the other hand.
Sindh Minister for Culture Sassui Palijo said that her department was also working with other universities on different chairs of great poets, leaders, scholars and also intend to establish Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Chair at Islamabad University. Provincial Secretary Culture, Abdul Aziz Uqeli speaking at the occasion said that almost one year had been consumed in institutionalisation of this project. He said under this project, trainee artists were required to complete six months course and after every six months another new batch would be trained. He said that initially, vocal music, instrumental music and folk dance had been included in this project but in future the scope of this school would increase on broad spectrum.
Earlier, memorandum of understanding of this project of Mehran Music School was signed between Deputy Secretary Culture Department Iqbal Khan, Director Centre of Excellence in Art & Design MUET Bhai Khan Shar and renowned vocalist Mazhar Hussain from SUR Society Hyderabad.