music diplomacy
The annual "fete de la musique" celebration marking the "spontaneity and openness to all forms of music" takes place in more than 350 cities across the globe Monday evening, 28 years after it was started in France.
Salman Ahmad, founder of South Asia’s most successful rock band Junoon, has been on a rock and roll jihad (struggle) ever since his first concert at 18 – a medical school talent show in Lahore, Pakistan. Eyes closed, emotions pumped, he was ripping through Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’ on his guitar, mesmerized by the crowd’s screams, only to discover that the yelling was coming from a group of bearded students from a religious group outraged by music they considered un-Islamic.







