It began, as all fine things often do, with a gentle whisper of strings. Soon, the piano keys of Qi Shen answered, weaving with the soft tones of Aldo Mata’s cello. Two instruments, two temperaments, met in a dialogue that was playful, passionate, and finally harmonious. Their music did not merely drift into the night; it rose to the rafters, sank into the marble floors, and lingered in the air like the delicate trace of a rare scent.
This was Islamabad, September 29, 2025, at the Residence of Spain, but it could just as easily have been Madrid, Vienna, or Prague. Such is the power of music: to collapse geography, erase politics, and place strangers on common grounds. The Embassy of Spain in Pakistan, with its long-standing affection for cultural diplomacy, chose this evening to remind us that art travels lighter than diplomats’ briefs and speaks with more conviction than communiqués.
But Islamabad was not the only city to fall under this spell. Earlier, in Peshawar, the historic ballroom of the Peshawar Museum, a 19th-century hall in its full glory, hosted a mesmerising performance of the cello and piano. The heritage site was breathing, pulsing, and reassuring, how history can be revived through beauty.
In Lahore, too, on September 30, 2025, the Embassy of Spain extended its cultural embrace in partnership with Lahore’s Alhamra Arts Council.
For the Spanish Embassy, this was not a one-off dalliance. They have form in such matters. A Flamenco Night at Serena Hotel had once set the capital tapping its heels.
Spain’s gesture was generous, and a reminder to Pakistan that shared histories are forged as much in music, art, and cultural exchanges as in summits. And so the Embassy’s cultural diplomacy initiative continues.
The programme was carefully curated, and no accident of choice. David Popper’s Hungarian Rhapsody, all fiery temperament and melancholic sighs, rubbed shoulders with Manuel de Falla’s El Paño Moruno, that deceptively simple Spanish folk song, intertwined with centuries of longing. In the hands of Mata and Shen, the pieces became more than compositions. They were conversations like a bartered tale between East and West, tradition and improvisation, melancholy and joy. The audience, rapt and slightly breathless, seemed to know they were participants in something rare, a harmony that, like a perfect dinner guest, neither overstayed nor overstated.
