The Proms marks the 70th anniversary of partition with a concert celebrating the classical music of India and Pakistan.

The concert is curated by the Darbar Festival and explores the region’s diverse musical culture, the performances celebrate three very different traditions.

India’s great maestro, Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee performs ragas on the iconic sitar from the Hindustani music of North India, while South India’s Carnatic music is more strongly melodic, coloured by the distinctive timbres of the Carnatic violin and veena.

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The Sufi music of Pakistan provides an ecstatic climax to this concert, weaving rich, mesmeric tapestries of sound.

Darbar Festival Director Sandeep Virdee said, ‘It has been a personal dream to curate for the BBC Proms and one of the biggest challenges to represent the classical music from both India and Pakistan.

"In the end the balance of Hindustani music from north India and Carnatic music from south India plus the sufi tradition of qawaali music from Pakistan brings a unique blend for the BBC Proms audiences”

“I feel that the Prom will highlight some important instruments and voices from this classical tradition, namely the iconic sitar popularised globally by Pandit Ravi Shankar and played by India’s finest sitar maestro Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee. 

"From the south we feature the carnatic veena, instrument of Goddess Saraswati for the arts. 

"Finally, the voices qawaali music from Pakistan as popularised by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is presented by the great Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal and Brothers. 

"The evening will take the audiences on a journey from north to south India then to Pakistan for a crescendo climax performance."

The concert is 22:15 Friday 25 Aug 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall