The Music of Pakistan includes diverse elements ranging from music from various parts of South Asia as well as Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and modern-day Western popular music influences. With these multiple influences, a distinctive Pakistani music has emerged.
Ustad Alla Rakha Qureshi, mononymously known as Alla Rakha, was an Indian tabla player who specialised in Hindustani classical music. He was a frequent accompanist of sitar player Pandit Ravi Shankar and was largely responsible for introducing tabla to the western audience.
Abida Parveen is a Pakistani singer, composer, and musician of Sufi music. She is also a painter and an entrepreneur. Parveen is one of the highest- paid singers in Pakistan. Her singing and music have earned her many accolades, and she has been dubbed the 'Queen of Sufi music'.
Pandit Nikhil Ranjan Banerjee was an Indian classical sitarist of the Maihar Gharana. Along with Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Vilayat Khan, he emerged as one of the leading exponents of the sitar. He was a recipient of the Indian civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.
Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan is an Indian classical sitar maestro from the Imdadkhani gharana. He represents the seventh generation of the Etawah Gharana as its primary exponent. He is praised especially for the vocalistic phrasing and quality of his raga improvisations, known as "Gayaki Ang." This translates to "Singing branch/limb". The sitar legend, Ustad Vilayat Khan resurrected and re-introduced Gayaki Ang as a widely accepted sitar genre in India and abroad, and his nephew, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan has carried this torch into the present day.
Ustad Imdad Khan was a sitar and surbahar player. He was the first sitar player ever to be recorded.
Imrat Khan was an Indian sitar and surbahar player and composer. He was the younger brother of sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan.
Ustad Sultan Khan was an Indian sarangi player and classical vocalist belonging to Sikar Gharana. He was one of the founding members of the Indian fusion group Tabla Beat Science, with Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, in 2010.
The Wadali Brothers – Puranchand Wadali and Pyarelal Wadali – are Sufi singers and musicians from Guru Ki Wadali in the Amritsar District in Punjab, India. Pyarelal Wadali, the younger of the two died on 4 March 2018 at the age of 75 due to cardiac arrest at the Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Amritsar.
Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan is a Pakistani pop and classical singer, songwriter, and composer belonging to the Patiala Gharana tradition of music. He was the lead vocalist of the Pakistani pop rock band Fuzön until 2006 and is a prominent playback singer in the Indian film industry and Pakistani television industry. The youngest son of noted classical vocalist Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, Ali started his musical training at the age of four under the tutelage of his uncle, Ustad Bade Fateh Ali Khan, who was widely regarded as the foremost exponent of Hindustani classical music in Pakistan.
Harshdeep Kaur is an Indian playback singer known for her Bollywood Hindi, Punjabi, English and Sufi songs. She is popularly known as "Sufi Ki Sultana" because of her soulful Sufi renditions. After winning titles in two reality shows, Kaur established herself as a lead singer in Bollywood soundtracks. Kaur was sixteen years old when she released her first Bollywood song, "Sajna Mai Haari".
Shujaat Husain Khan is one of the most acclaimed North Indian musicians and sitar players of his generation. He belongs to the Imdadkhani gharana school of music. He has recorded over 100 albums and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for his work with the band Ghazal with Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor. He also sings frequently. His style of sitar playing, known as gayaki ang, is imitative of the subtleties of the human voice.
The Etawah gharana is a North Indian school of sitar and surbahar music and named after a small town close to Agra where Imdad Khan (1848–1920) lived. It is also known as Imdadkhani gharana in the honour of its founder, Imdad Khan.
Ustad Vilayat Khan was an Indian classical sitar player, considered by many to be the greatest sitarist of his age. Along with Imdad Khan, Enayat Khan, and Imrat Khan, he is credited with the creation and development of gayaki ang on the sitar.
Ustad Rais Khan was a Pakistani sitarist. At his peak he was regarded as one of the greatest sitar players of all time. He continued performing till his last days. He moved from India to Pakistan in 1986, where he took up Pakistani citizenship.
Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan was an Indian sitar player. Khan received the national awards Padma Shri (1970) and Padma Bhushan (2006) and was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 1987.
Chhaap Tilak Sab Chheeni, is a Ghazal written and composed by Amir Khusro, a 14th-century Sufi mystic, in popular Western Indian language Braj Bhasha. Due to the resonance of its melody and mystical lyrics, it is frequently heard in Qawwali concerts across Indian Subcontinent. Chaapp Tilak Sab Chheeni is considered as Amir Khusru‘s most known Kalam which is basically a penned version of his imagination of devotion and the joy of oneness with the eternal one. This poetry is an epic example where an inherent middle eastern art form gets entangled with the Indic philology, custom and art a unique twist between the two artforms. This kind of devotion is rarely seen in Islamic ghazals and qawwalis preceding it. This poetry is a great example of the role both cultures played to create this Ghazal and Qawwali which has a unique essence combining both Indic and Islamic culture which inherently created a new unique art form which contributed to the early beginnings of the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb culture to be developed.
Abdul Sattar Khan, popularly known as Ustad Tari Khan, is a Pakistani tabla player and vocalist. Tari Khan hails from the Punjab gharana and is the student of Ustad Miyan Shaukat Hussain. He has been awarded with many accolades such as Taj Poshi, the Hazrat Amir Khusrow Award, as well as Pakistan's Pride of Performance Award in 2008. Tari Khan belongs to the tabla playing gharana called the Punjab gharana. Today, he is acknowledged as one of the foremost Tabla players of all time by musicians all over the world.
Dhruv Sangari also known as Bilal Chishty Sangari بلال ڇݜتى سنگارى is a Sufi and Classical Indian vocalist, composer, lyricist, savant and teacher. He is the son of well-known scholar and author Kumkum Sangari and noted painter Mahendra 'Manu' Sangari.
Roohani Sisters, Dr. Jagriti Luthra Prasanna is the founder and lead vocalist of Roohani Sisters. They are a Sufi singer from New Delhi, India. Dr. Jagriti Luthra Prasanna continues to lead the group, with a focus on promoting Sufi music and spirituality through their performances.
