Mathias Duplessy & Mukhtiyar Ali to Perform at Udaipur World Music Festival

Mathias Duplessy and Mukhtiyar Ali will present a fusion of Sufi and French music at Udaipur World Music Festival. The festival takes place February 13 & 14, 2016 in India.

French musician Mathias Duplessy started working with the Sufi Indian singer Mir Mukhtiyar Ali six years ago and soon realized they had a common language in music. They evolved a style of their own that was inspired by Rajasthani folk, flamenco, blues, reggae, African, Japanese and Mongolian music. In 2011, they recorded an album in Paris called “Jeena Jeena” and are performing since with the great sarangi player Sabir Khan as special guest.

Mathias Duplessy plays dozens of instruments. His type of world music crosses numerous musical boundaries. His influences include flamenco, Middle Eastern, classical music and gypsy jazz. Mathias has a lot of projects following his music encounters and composes music for films in France, Morocco and India (Peepli Live, Finding Fanny).

Mir Mukhtiyar Ali comes from the semi-nomadic community called Mirasi from the Thar desert. He lives in Pugal, in a village at the border with Pakistan and Rajasthan. He belongs to the 26th generation of this community which has successfully kept alive the oral tradition Sufiana Qalam.

Mukhtiyar Ali has a captivating voice. He has preserved the ideology of Sufiana music which impels divine communion with an ecstasy created in total detachment. He pervades this very essence of Sufiana Qalam with his involvement not just in the music but also in its poetry.

Today, while singing Sufi poetry all over India with his original compositions, he’s also regularly called in Bombay to work on film background scores and touring abroad with his Jeena Jeena team.