Singer back in Tucson with 'Wanderlust'
-by Gerald M. Gay

Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia had just released her debut album in the United States when she noticed something she considered unusual.

"You get these regular updates called Soundscans that report on where you sell your CDs," Ahluwalia said in a phone interview last-week from her new home in New York City. "Every week we would see these big blips in Tucson. They weren't the highest, I don't think, but they were high enough for us to think, 'Why Tucson?'"

As it turns out, Ahluwalia's album had received significant airplay on the Old Pueblo's community radio station KXCI (91.3FM), which boosted her reputation with Tucson's world music fans and, in turn, increased album sales.

"I was very intrigued," she said. "Audiences pop up in the most unlikely of places. I just never thought Arizona would be one of them."

She eventually performed her own unique brand of traditional ghazal poetry set to original compositions at Solar Culture Gallery nearly a year ago. She even made a few friends at the Downtown 24-hour-a-day eatery, the Grill, after the show.

"The concert was a beautiful mix of people of Indian descent and American non-Indians.” Ahluwalia said. "I had the chance to meet some really nice people."

Ahluwalia returns to town Tuesday for a concert at the Rialto Theatre. She brings with her her second U.S. release, "Wanderlust," an album that travels beyond the realm of ghazal and reaches into Portuguese fado as well as Sub-Saharan African traditions.

A fan of all different styles of world music, Ahluwalia had fallen in love with the sorrowful melodies associated with fado after attending several Portuguese concerts between her homes in Toronto and the Big Apple.

When Portugal popped up as a touring destination for the musician, she took advantage of the situation.

"I thought if we were touring Portugal, then I really wanted to possess this music," she said. "I had to take this opportunity to find these musicians."

She invited fado artists such as guitarist Jose Manuel Neto, bassist Ricardo Cruz and accordion player Enzo d'Aversa to record with her. Then, together with her husband, Rez Abbasi, Ahluwalia created works that blended traditional fado and ghazal elements.

"(Abbasi) would be practicing something and I'd hear a bunch of chords fly by and run out of the bedroom," Ahluwalia said. "I would then compose something based on those chords. Because we live together, there was definitely that knowledge of what we could do."

Combining ghazal and fado, she added, "was actually painfully simple. There was a lot of groundwork to be done before I landed in Lisbon (Portugal) to record. But once I had understood what was going to work with those musicians, after that understanding had been achieved, it was like 'Wow.' It was a miracle that no one else had ever done this before."

Ahluwalia hopes Tucson fans will enjoy her new CD. She has scheduled a concert in town amid shows in much larger markets, Los Angeles, Chicago and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

"I'm the kind of person who likes music meant to manipulate your heart rather than your tush," she said. "These songs have a broad range of emotions. Ghazals are about longing, and they describe passions and one's struggle to achieve these passions, carnal or spiritual. Fado has those elements as well."