Founded in 2001 by a group of painters,musicians,dancers,architects and writers Lahore Chitrkar, studio & gallery is a registered non-profit, non-commercial organization for the education and promotion of classical visual and performing Arts (Videoes on Youtube). The Lahore Chitrkar Studio & Gallery is established for the following purposes:

1. To promote and develop visual and performing arts in the local environment by providing facilities for training, exhibition, performance and publication in the various fields of arts;
2. To engage practicing artists and apprentices in projects that generate written material on the arts in the form of research documents, data and monographs of artists work. Presently, artistic activity not only remains limited in scale but also highly deficient in written comment and theory;
3. To preserve and rejuvenate the traditional arts as part of an effort to sustain the cultural heritage that informs and enriches contemporary artistic expression;
4. To undertake public art projects, explore new, non-elitist venues for exhibition and performance with the view of disseminating art to a wider public;
5. To actively participate in forums and networks for support of art activity in the society;

The Society is run by the Board of Directors led by executive director. As a policy only practicing art professionals are eligible to become members of the board. The members of the governing body are:

Shahid Mirza (Executive director),  Nahid Siddiqui, Wajid Ali (Secretary), Huma Safdar & Rabia Nadir (Treasurers), Azhar Jaffri, Akram Varraich, Ayesha Ali, Saeed Asghar, .

Lahore Chitrkar, Account # 1025-00305671-03, Habib Bank Limited, Fortress stadium branch, Lahore, Pakistan

Chitrkar Classes & Events

Chitrkar is housed in a rented property which we have to vacate by January 1st 2010. In view of the present political and financial situation, we have decided to scale down the activities of Lahore Chitrkar.

A meeting of the concerned was held on 18 December 2009 and following decisions were made,

1. The premises will be vacated and ongoing classes in music, art, yoga & dance would be discontinued as of January 1st 2010.
2. The monthly classical music concerts would continue, preferably at Alhamara cultural complex or some other public venue.
3. An extensive summer art, music, yoga & dance program will be offered from June till September, this is when it is viable as we have maximum number of students because of summer vacations. We are looking for a space to hold summer programs.
4. The Art & photographic exhibitions, discussion forums, film shows and lecture/demonstration sessions will be organized at public venues, 197 events have been organized so far..
5. The children music and art workshops for the low-income schools will be organized at the school premises.
6. We have produced 120 audio recordings of contemporary classical musicians, lectures on music and poetry recitals; plus a 27 hours audio recording of complete epic 'Heer Ranjha' by renowned Punjabi poet Waris Shah, traditional recital by Liaqat Inayat & accompanied on flute by Akmal Qadri. The post-production and release of the Chitrkar recordings will be made possible.

We will be looking for a free space where the summer classes and concerts could be organized; suggestions are welcome.

Lahore Chitrkar music program, 2001-2009

The aim of this program is to develop an appreciation for our rich classical music heritage; Classes are held in 11 disciplines by well reputed and senior teachers. Chitrkar regularly organizes monthly concerts of both vocal and instrumental classical music on its premises. In small cities concert program classical music concerts with accomplished musicians were held in wazirabad (2004) & Sahiwal (2006). These events not only established Lahore Chitrkar as a venue for classical performances but also gave uninitiated audience an opening to cultivate classical music listening. Chitrkar seeks funds to support its teaching programs in classical music with three main objectives:

1. To provide support to existing Ustads so that they may pass on their theoretical and practical knowledge to new students
2. To encourage training of new musicians so that the classical music tradition is kept alive
3. To create a platform where musicians could practice, teach and perform regularly.

Monthly classical music concerts

The monthly classical music concerts are held regularly since May 2001 more than 100 concerts have been organized so far. Chitrkar considers these musical concerts with the Ustads not only an important contribution to the cultural life of the city but also essential for the survival of the artists as performers. There is but a couple of other platforms for classical music concerts, which are tragically few for a large metropolis like Lahore. The concerts provide an opportunity both for the classical vocalists and instrumentalists for performance and the audience who rarely listen to live performances by the classical musicians. The concerts are held on Saturday evenings at the Lahore Chitrkar premises. A quarterly concert is held to assess the growth and development of each student. All the students are expected to perform at the concert

Classical music concerts in small cities, Wazirabad & Sahiwal concerts

Music listening is a privilege limited to people of larger cities; we wanted to expand opportunities both, for the musicians and the audience by organizing music concerts for the small cities. The first small city concert was held at Wazirabad on 15th May 2004, second concert was held in Sahiwal on 15 March 2005. The concerts were held in an open space traditionally used for large gatherings and attended by an appreciative audience of 600/700 people. The event offered an opportunity for the local musicians both to perform in public and interact with senior musicians. This activity has helped Lahore Chitrkar develop working relationship with organizations working is these cities thus opening new possibilities of sharing and promotion of cultural activities. The local organizations have agreed to jointly organize the concert with Lahore Chitrkar at various small cities.

Lectures on music making

Lahore Chitrkar regularly organizes lectures on the practice and theory of classical and contemporary music. Ustad Ghulam Haidar, Ustad Wajid, Ustad Hafiz Khan of Taalwandi, Parvez Paras and Ustad Badar-uz-Zaman conducted lecture and demonstration sessions on classical music.
Four lectures on the practice and theory of classical music were conducted in 2004. In 2005 a two-part Lecture on ‘Appreciating European classical music’ was conducted by Brigitte Hochrainer, visiting musician from Austria. Dr. Lowell Lyberg, musicologist from USA lectured on‘Vestiges of Mughal court, the Nazrana ritual’.
The audience of 40/50 people consists mostly of young students of music and the practicing musicians. The sessions are followed by discussion by the participants.

Primers for classical music students, Tabla primer

Classical music was tradionally kept as a well guarded secret strictly within the few families of the classical musicians. The tradition is strictly vocal and non structured since no syllabus was required as such for the kin and no teaching aids were developed for the novice. The absence of any teaching material has been the biggest hurdle for the students who do not belong to any music family and are more used to structured teaching methods. Lahore Chitrkar is initiating a project to produce primers for classical music with the help of senior musicians and their students.
A primer for Tabla is produced by Ustad Wajid Ali the renowned Tabla player and Tabla class teacher at Chitrkar. More music primers are planned for each instrument and vocal style'

About students

Since there is no compulsory fee for the classes most of the students come from low-income families who could not afford to pay the charges for private instruction. Moreover, students are not being burdened with an unaffordable monthly fee to learn classical music. We hope that this would be conducive to development of new musicians, particularly among the low-income group, some of whom could become serious performers as well as future teachers. The seriousness and devotion of the participants of the program is evident in the progress made by their students at Chitrkar, some gave public performances at Chitrkar and elsewhere during the year. Five students of Lahore Chitrkar music class won gold medals in the All Pakistan Music Conference held each year in Lahore.
A scholarship program was initiated in 2002, to facilitate serious music students who come mostly from low-income families. The financial support has helped them pursue music learning on full time basis and still fulfill their familial responsibilities.

Art program, 2001-2009

The painting & drawing classes are the core activity of Lahore Chitrkar. The course conducted by Shahid Mirza is designed both for an amateur desirous of exploring art as a creative expression and the more advanced art student seeking self expression. The courses are intensive and structured to give a sound grounding in basic skills of painting, drawing from life, lino/woodcut printmaking and sculpture. Lectures and readings form part of the studio environment.

Art workshops for children

The Chitrkar society has made art activity for children a part of its program since its inception. The Lahore Chitrkar Studio and Gallery, has held regular 3 weeks summer art workshops and the music education workshops for the young. Children from the neighborhood are encouraged to participate in the workshops as well as a wide group from around town. A variety of art, music and theater activities are conducted with the children aged 4+.