The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), in collaboration with the Aga Khan Music Programme, presents this lecture-recital featuring master musicians from Hunza and academic researchers exploring the region’s musical tradition. 

Hareep and the musicians

Hareep is an indigenous musical tradition of the Hunza Valley and its surrounding regions in northern Pakistan. Historically performed across a range of social, ritual, and ceremonial contexts, it accompanied soldiers’ departures for battle and their return, marked victories and defeats, animated polo matches and seasonal celebrations, and formed an integral part of shamanic trance rituals. Its melodies carry not only musical knowledge but also the histories, memories, and social worlds in which the tradition has been practised for generations. 

The preservation and transmission of Hareep have historically been sustained by the Bericho, a hereditary community of musicians whose knowledge has been passed down through oral teaching, apprenticeship, and performance. Despite profound social and economic transformations in Hunza, Bericho musicians have continued to safeguard an extensive repertoire of melodies and performance practices. Today, however, much of this inherited knowledge rests with a small number of senior practitioners, making the documentation and transmission of their expertise increasingly important

Performance and conversation 

This lecture-recital brings master musicians from Hunza into conversation with researchers and audiences to explore Hareep as a living tradition of musical knowledge, memory, and cultural heritage. Combining live performance with dialogue, the event places the musicians’ voices and experiences at its centre, inviting audiences to discover the stories behind the melodies and the people who have sustained them. 

The musicians will reflect on how they acquired their repertoires, how musical knowledge is remembered and transmitted, and how the social position of musicians in Hunza has changed over time. Their experiences offer insights into the relationship between musical practice and social identity, as well as the ways in which traditions endure, adapt, and acquire new meanings across generations. 

The discussion will also consider the changing circumstances in which Hareep is practised today. Education, migration, tourism, media technologies, and cultural heritage initiatives have reshaped attitudes towards traditional music and musicianship. Against this backdrop, the event will explore questions of cultural ownership, authenticity, innovation, and artistic creativity, while recognising the agency of the musicians who continue to negotiate these changes. 

Launching the digitised dissertation 

The lecture-recital will also mark the public launch of the digitised edition of Colin Huehns’ landmark dissertation, Music of Northern Pakistan (1991). A foundational study of the region’s musical traditions, the dissertation remains an important resource for researchers and musicians alike. Its digitisation by the Aga Khan Library represents a significant step towards expanding access to scholarship on the musical heritage of northern Pakistan. 

Joining the musicians will be Colin Huehns, whose fieldwork documented musical traditions across northern Pakistan, and Anna Schmid, whose ethnographic research on the Bericho musician community remains an important contribution to the study of Hareep. Both researchers will participate in dialogue with the practitioners, reflecting on their respective fieldwork and the continuities and transformations they have witnessed in the region’s musical life. 

By bringing together the knowledge of practitioners and researchers, this event seeks to highlight Hareep not simply as a repertoire of melodies to be preserved, but as a living cultural practice sustained through relationships, memory, performance, and the dedication of its musicians.