The music duo Dust of Soul made its debut on an Amphithe­ater stage with its per­for­mance at the Mus­cat City Ampthithe­ater Qurum on 26 Octo­ber 2017. The host pre­sent­ed Dust of Soul as «the sen­sa­tion duo from Switzer­land». As the open­ing act for the Indi­an Bol­ly­wood Super­star Ayush­mann Khur­rana, Dust of Soul per­formed their hit song «Believe» and the Swiss Love Song for Oman – «The Col­or of Oman is Love» in front of a full sta­di­um with sev­er­al thou­sands of people.

It’s been an amaz­ing sto­ry and one won­ders how two Swiss artists can make it onto a MTV India stage in Oman? Well, behind the scenes it goes back a pret­ty long way. It all start­ed five years ago when Singer Dusty and Pianist MiKey met and formed “Dust of Soul”. The two expe­ri­enced their first cli­max in a cre­ative phase and com­posed sev­er­al songs, keen to share them and get a response. This is how they per­formed on stage right from the begin­ning with only a few of their orig­i­nal songs. Dur­ing their career the two Swiss built a com­mu­ni­ty on Face­book that start­ed to grow very quick­ly. Soon a pop­u­lar­i­ty estab­lished in the Arab world. The north african coun­try Tunisia took them by storm. Which is why the artists decid­ed to fol­low that lead and find out why their music reach­es out to peo­ple in a place that is so very dif­fer­ent from where they have per­formed before.

To Oman

Years lat­er, a young Tunisian engi­neer sup­posed to the duo to take the pro­mo­tion of their music fur­ther onto the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, as he shift­ed to the king­dom of Oman for busi­ness rea­sons and was cap­ti­vat­ed by musi­cal inter­est and pos­si­bil­i­ties. The cul­tur­al love was large­ly shared by the rul­ing Sul­tan. For this rea­son he spon­sored a mag­nif­i­cent Roy­al Opera House high­light­ed with inter­na­tion­al shows and con­certs for the peo­ple of Oman. Inspired by this sto­ry, Dust of Soul ven­tured to the Mid­dle East, com­plete­ly unaware of what to expect. 

The year after in autumn, Dust of Soul had gained valu­able friend­ships and made strong acquain­tances with var­i­ous notable peo­ple from var­i­ous fields and indus­tries. More­over have they found friends that have become fam­i­ly over time. 

Dust of Soul organ­ised quite a dozen shows in the Mid­dle East by today and built their grow­ing audi­ence with the help of their friends. This is how the cul­tur­al exchange evening came in Octo­ber 2017, which Dust of Soul ini­ti­at­ed with the col­lab­o­ra­tive help of Lub­na Al-Balushi, who is a poet writ­ing and per­form­ing poet­ry in four lan­guages. You can check our her work here on her web­site.

MTV India

The event was adver­tised as “Human­i­ty First – Music & Poet­ry” by inter­na­tion­al artists. Grand Hyatt Mus­cat offered a hall with an inti­mate space and a flair of ele­gance. The audi­ence was mixed with curi­ous hotel guests and Omani peo­ple inter­est­ed in music and the arts in gen­er­al. VIP guests were Swiss Ambas­sador’s first assis­tant and TV star Saif Al-Foori. Read more about the hap­pen­ing here.

Among the audi­ence were board mem­bers of the MTV show that is soon to hap­pen in Mus­cat. Dust of Soul had already arrived from their flight to Lon­don for a next appear­ance, when the board called and booked Dust of Soul for the show.

Dust of Soul rearranged their plans for Europe for two weeks and returned to the Sul­tanate where they attend­ed press con­fer­ences and TV inter­views. Watch the inter­view with Times of Oman TV here online. 

Already after a few days, Dust of Soul stepped onto the MTV India stage at the City Amphithe­ater Qurum, Oman’s biggest stage just two hours south-east of Dubai. They per­formed with the cham­pi­on of the 2017 ‘Dil Hai Hin­dus­tani’ Indi­an singing con­test, Haitham Rafi, and Bol­ly­wood Super­star Ayush­mann Khur­rana with this Band “Ayush­mann Bha­va”. 

Ayush­mann Khur­rana Live in Oman

Read the fol­low­ing press releas­es about the Swiss artists:

• Times TV «Lunchtime Live» / Oman: Link
• Times of Oman news­pa­per / Oman: Link
• Oman Tri­bune news­pa­per / Oman: Link
• Swiss nation­al TV SRF 1 show «Glanz & Glo­ria» / Switzer­land: Link
• Tele­basel TV show «Glam» / Switzer­land: Link

MTV India Dust of Soul Show

MTV India Dust of Soul Show

MTV India Dust of Soul Show

The full Dust of Soul MTV India show per­for­mance is avail­able on DVD with the album «Dust of Soul In Col­ors» through the online shop. Pre­view a teas­er right here below:

• Title pho­tog­ra­phy by Taw­fiq Al Bolushi | Qismatt89
• Arti­cle pho­tographs by Taw­fiq Al Bolushi | Qismatt89
• Text by Dust of Soul | Michael Odermatt