Rizwan Muazzam Qawwali Group

When Pakistani qawwali superstar Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died in 1997, his family’s six-century musical tradition did not end. The legacy of qawwali, a form of devotional music popular in South Asia, was passed to his nephews, Rizwan and Muazzam, exceptional singers who carry on the Sufi tradition of musical devotion and exaltation.

Performing songs that use hypnotic vocal repetition to induce a state of ecstasy, the brothers’ soaring voices are backed by a gharana, an ensemble of harmonium and tabla accompanied by handclaps. Rizwan and Muazzam are the torchbearers of the Qawwali tradition. As part of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the formation of Pakistan taking place in 2017, the brothers’ imaginative reinterpretation of classic Sufi texts is a rare and transcendent experience that you will not want to miss.