Month-long National Music Fest and Conference begins

Aiming to unite the music lovers across the country, Sangeet Oikya Bangladesh has organized the first national music festival and conference.

The month-long event, which will take place across the country, kicked off at Chittagong district Shilpakala Academy on Friday.

The next festival, which was supposed to be held on June 24 at Sylhet District Shilpakala Academy, has been postponed due to the flooding in Sylhet.

The final programme of the festival and the national conference will be held in Dhaka - Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on July 16. Cultural Affairs State Minister K M Khalid inaugurated the festival. Speaking as the chief guest, he said, “20,000 musicians were assisted during the Corona period. When I was in charge of the ministry, there was 30 crore BDT in the special assistance fund for artists. Now the fund has been raised to 50 crores.”

He has also assured to consider the demands of the artists.

Presided over by Sangeet Oikya Bangladesh president Rezwana Choudhury Bannya, President of Geetikabi Sangha Bangladesh Shahid Mahmud Jangi was present at the event.

Speaking on the occasion, Rezwana Choudhury Bannya said, “For 50 years, lyricists, composers, and singers were deprived of their due respect and remuneration. Sangeet Oikya Bangladesh is working to overcome this situation.”

Shahid Mahmud Jangi raised several demands for the development of musicians and said, “We demand that an allocation of a separate office for the artists and to build a Sangeet Academy in the copyright office building that is being built.”

He also demanded a separate seats for musicians in government hospitals to improve the quality of life of the artists.

Kumar Biswajit, another secretary general of Sangeet Oikya Bangladesh, said, “This is our initiative for everyone involved in the music arena. We urge everyone to work together to make this initiative a success.”

Then the first segment of the cultural programme started with the performance of classical music by Samarjit Roy. After that the artists of Chittagong Sangeet Bhavan performed songs on stage, there were also performances of traditional regional songs of Chittagong by Prem Sundar Vaishnav, performances of Rangamati’s Zoom Aesthetics Council’s hill tribes, and Chittagong based band ‘Durbin’.

Rezwana Chowdhury Bonya, Kumar Biswajit, Hasan Abidur Reza Jewel, Joy Shahriar, and Kishore Das performed music in the second part of the cultural programme.

Three popular bands of the country, Renaissance, Dolchhut, and Souls, came on stage at 8:30pm.

According to Shahid Mahmud Jangi, the next festivals will be held on June 24 and July 1 at Sylhet District Shilpakala Academy and Barishal District Shilpakala Academy respectively. The final programme of the festival and the national conference will be held in Dhaka - Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on July 16.

The entire festival and conference are sponsored by the Ministry of Culture.