Shreya's City of Dreams

She is the small-town girl who struck all the right notes in the city of dreams, and now Shreya Ghoshal will be taking her fantastic show to the NIA in Birmingham in the New Year.

The Indian singer was brought up in a quaint little town called Rawatbhata in Rajasthan where her scientist father was posted where she started learning music at the tender age of four. Shreya’s real break came when she won a TV reality show where she impressed director Sanjay Leela Bhansali with her vocal prowess.

Working continuously with many music directors, Shreya is best known as a playback singer in a number of films. She has recorded film songs not only in Hindi but also in Assamesse, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujrarati, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Nepali, Oriya, Tamil, Telegu, etc.

Performing all over the world, captivating audiences with her charming personality and above all her musical ability, Shreya will be bringing her evening of wonderful music to the Birmingham-based venue in April of next year.

See Shreya Ghoshal on Saturday 27 April 2013.
Venue: NIA Birmingham
Time:
Adm: £25, £35, £50, and £75 (plus booking and transaction fees).
Info: 0844 338 8000 / www.thenia.co.uk

These Lands Are Your Lands

A host of artists, including Mariza, more than just the leading Portuguese fado singer of her generation, will be showing why they are so highly regarded during the run of This Land Is Your Land, a weekend celebration of British and International Traditional music, dance and ceremony as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Festival of Britain with MasterCard.

A global icon who has seduced worldwide audiences with her awesome singing, charismatic stage presence and powerful blend of traditional and contemporary song forms, it's a case of ‘once seen-never forgotten', in the case of Mariza.. Across four spectacular studio albums she has breathed new life into fado. Now, for her fifth studio album, she returns to her roots. Fado Tradicional (out this spring on EMI) finds Mariza triumphantly exploring the origins of the genre, proving her mettle as a true fado singer and as an artist without peer.

Inspired by Woody Guthrie's most iconic song This Land Is Your Land, recorded in 1944, Southbank Centre curates These Lands Are Your Lands.

Since 1951 the Centre has played host to traditional music from all over the world through landmark festivals and concerts by some of the world's greatest artists, including from Ravi Shankar, Youssou N'Dour, Taraf De Haidouks and Baaba Mal, whose 1988 Royal Festival Hall concert was recently voted as one of the best world music concerts ever by Songlines magazine.

Musical highlights as part of the These Lands Are Your Lands series include Artists in Residence Bellowhead and their guests in The Great Folk Jukebox, with artists including Marc Almond, Bishi, Green Gartside, Bella Hardy, Robyn Hitchcock, Lisa Knapp and June Tabor and the Oysterband paying homage to the much-celebrated Singing Englishmen folk concert curated by A.L. Lloyd for the 1951 Festival of Britain (7 May); new Real World signings Syriana (7 May), and a triple bill of UK-based bands Kosmos, Paprika and She'koyokh exploring Balkan, Gypsy and Jewish music afresh (8 May).