When East meets West

It’s very rare to watch and hear the sweet notes of an oud, sarod, tabla and a darbuka all together. Siblings Atiya and Zainab Lax, who are part of the band Culture Resonance from Germany, and who performed in the city on Thursday, along with Kushal Krishna, were here to show the marriage between the music of the East and West.

The two girls, Zainab and Atiya, 24 and 22, laugh when they tell you, “Our music is a lot like our lineage. Our grandfather is an Afghan born in India, our father is from Turkey and we were born in Germany. We have a mix of cultures in our blood, so it’s only normal that our music too carries the same amalgamation,” says Zainab, who adds, “This mix of music expresses our language and our culture much
better.”

The band Culture Resonance was formed in 2006 in Germany. The three Lax siblings, Zainab, Atiya and their older brother Sadretdin would often jam together at their home. “The three of us have always played together except this time and a previous performance. Our brother couldn’t make it to India this time, so we chose Kushal and jammed with him,” explains Atiya.

The three siblings studied western classical music at first and it was much later that they took up eastern instruments. Zainab, who plays the sarod, guitar and the harp says, “I learnt to play the sarod in Banares a few years ago. After that there was no looking back.” Atiya can play the cello and percussion, but she learnt to play the oud much later. Their brother Sadretdin can play the sitar, doumbak and the daf.

The sisters chose to perform in Hyderabad because Zainab fell in love with the city in 2011. “I taught music at a school in Hyderabad during my one-year stay here. Coming back to the city feels like we’re at a place where the culture is our own,” explains Zainab.