The Harlem Gospel Travelers (at left) and Riyaaz Qawwali share the stage for “Singing Together: Qawwali and Gospel.”
“Singing Together: Qawwali and Gospel” is a music collaboration between Houston-based Riyaaz Qawwali and the Harlem Gospel Travelers from New York City, which features performances from both ensembles individually followed by a song performed together, interweaving qawwali and gospel elements into a resoundingly joyous evening of praise.
The boundary-crossing performance comes to the Moss Arts Center Thursday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m.
Featuring soul-stirring melodies, lively rhythms, and spiritually uplifting lyrics, qawwali is a genre of music that has been used for centuries to spark religious devotion and bring listeners to a state of spiritual union with God. Traditional qawwalis are often sung in praise for religious teachers, saints, and scholars and include themes of love, intoxication, and longing. The collaborative component of “Singing Together” merges qawwali and gospel into a singular soundscape with lyrics carefully arranged to honor both traditions.
Settled in the United States and hailing from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, Riyaaz Qawwali musicians represent multiple religious and spiritual backgrounds. Trained in eastern and western classical music, they have been professionally performing qawwali for the past 15 years.
The founding members of the ensemble chose the qawwali because it houses unique musical elements in its repertoire that are not found in any other form of South Asian music. Riyaaz Qawwali’s mission is to expose this music to new audiences while still paying homage to traditional qawwali that has been in existence for over 700 years. The ensemble wants to expand the reach of the genre to new stages and people of other faiths and traditions.
Qawwali combines these elements with works from famous South Asian poets of multiple linguistic and religious backgrounds to create a universal message of oneness. The ensemble incorporates works from poetic giants such as Mirza Ghalib, Amir Khusrow, Bulleh Shah, Mir Taqi Mir, Sant Kabir, and Guru Nanak and uses numerous languages — including Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Guja-rati, and Hindi — to represent the linguistic and cultural diversity that exists in South Asia.
The Harlem Gospel Travelers draw deeply on the gospel quartet tradition of the ’50s and ’60s but with a distinctly modern edge that includes dazzling vocal arrangements punctuated with gritty bursts of guitar and crunchy rhythm breaks. With a new album, “Rhapsody,” vocalists Ifedayo Gatling, Dennis Bailey, and George Marage fully explore the entire range of music that influenced them with a dive into a lesser-known but hugely important era in the evolution of gospel music.
Born out of a nonprofit music education program led by producer Eli “Paperboy” Reed, the Harlem Gospel Travelers released their debut album “He’s on Time” to rave reviews in 2019, with Pop Matters hailing the album’s “musical transcendence” and AllMusic praising it as “dreamlike and joyous.” The record charted on Billboard, earned the Travelers high profile fans like Elton John — who invited them to appear on his “Rocket Hour” radio show on Apple Music — and landed them festival slots everywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz. Originally a quartet, the ensemble brought in Bailey and reconfigured as a trio prior to recording “Look Up!,” its first album of all original material.
This performance is supported in part by gifts from Ms. Deborah L. Brown and David and Judie Reemsnyder.
Related events
Prior to the performance, join Sonny K. Mehta, artistic director of Riyaaz Qawwali, for a talk about the rich musical tradition of qawwali in the Moss Arts Center’s Merryman Family Learning Studio, Room 253, from 6:30-7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26.
During his visit, Mehta and another Riyaaz Qawwali member will talk with APIDA+ students, music and sociology classes, and students in the university’s interfaith living-learning community Aurora about Riyaaz Qawwali’s mission to foster interfaith and intercultural understanding through music.
Tickets
Tickets for the performance are $20-$55 for general audience and $10 for students and youth 18 and under. Tickets can be purchased online; at the Moss Arts Center’s box office, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300 during box office hours.
Katie Gehrt for Virginia Tech