Asha's Encore

She started singing professionally when she was 10 to help pay the family bills. Some 60 years later, Bollywood playback queen Asha Bhosle is, quite probably, [an error occurred while processing this directive] the most recorded vocal artist in history. No exact tally exists, but Bhosle estimates she has laid down more than 12,000 songs in over a dozen languages.

For decades, slinky Bollywood actresses and dancers have been lip synching to her piquant vocal lines. In recent years, Bhosle has also occasionally collaborated with Western singers, including Boy George and Michael Stipe of R.E.M., and she opened a restaurant, Asha's, in Dubai in 2002. (She has said that if she didn't make it as a singer she would have been a cook.)

These days, Bhosle's modus operandi is still pretty much a game of hide-and-sing, but on Dec. 9 the graceful septuagenarian will step out from behind the silver screen to give a performance in Belgium, at the Centre for Fine Arts (bozar) in Brussels. The concert is part of a festival of Indian art and culture organized by bozar with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and it runs in Brussels through January.

The festival also includes a rare retrospective of master filmmaker Satyajit Ray and ends with a performance from renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain. For complete program listings, visit bozar.be.