Ustad Noor Bakhsh, Master of the Balochi Electric Benju
Presented with Center for Cultural Vibrancy + District of Raga

Tickets: $20 advance/$23 day-of
All ages
Doors at 6:30 PM, show at 7:00 PM
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Noor Bakhsh, a legendary instrumentalist from the Makran coast of Pakistan brings the electric benju (keyed zither) to Baltimore audiences for a rare performance of a unique and fascinating sound. The Markan coast is the semi-desert coastal strip of Balochistan on the Gulf of Oman. Noor is a maestro of the Balochi benju, which he has played since he was a child. Like his father, also a musician, he spent the early part of his life as nomadic shepherd, taking his livestock and following the rains, before settling down as a professional musician.

The Benju was once a Japanese children’s toy called the taishōkoto before it was adopted by Baloch musicians living in Karachi and developed into the refined folk instrument that it is today. Noor Bakhsh plays an electric benju, coaxing his sound through an old single coil pickup and a small amp he bought from Karachi decades ago. Because there is no electricity in his village, he runs the amp from a motorcycle battery, and maintains this setup on tour.

For those new to his music, Noor Baksh’s electric benju tone and his melodic ornamentations will be reminiscent of Ali Farka Toure and other West African guitarist’s style with polyrhythmic sixes and eights and is in ways very similar to the music of African that touches the Sahara. This is unsurprising, given the well documented migrations and seafaring, historical, intimacies between Balochistan and Africa, via the greater Indian Ocean world. It is this world that Ustad Noor Bakhsh brings back to life.
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Image credit: Zishan-Sheikh

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