Topic started by h (@ 210.210.36.37) on Wed Feb 25 04:32:27 EST 2004.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
Birmingham orchestra seeks Rahman's guidance
London, Feb 24 (IANS) The West Midlands town of Birmingham may be best known for its recordings of Mahler and Stravinsky, but the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has now enlisted the help A.R. Rahman to broaden its repertoire.
In a fortnight's time, Rahman will take the baton for two successive nights of themes from the Indian film industry, including many of his own works.
The CBSO, which achieved international status during the tenure of conductor Sir Simon Rattle, is seeking to find new audiences closer to home, by persuading Indian and Pakistani audiences into its Symphony Hall headquarters.
Tickets for the 2,200-seat auditorium are already selling fast among the city's south Asian population and, according to the orchestra's chief executive, Stephen Maddock, the Bollywood nights promise to pull in the largest ever non-white audience for a mainstream British orchestra.
Rahman is best known to western music fans as the composer of "Bombay Dreams", the West End musical.
But to his South Asian followers he is a cult figure who, at the age of 38, has already sold nearly 200 million albums and worked on more than 50 films, including "Lagaan".
He recently agreed to score the stage musical version of "Lord of the Rings", which is due to open next year.
Maddock told the media that the orchestra was setting out to attract non-traditional audiences.
Birmingham expected to have a non-white majority by 2010, making it one of the most multicultural cities in Britain. Yet the CBSO's core following was still largely from middle-class areas of the city.
"We have a responsibility to provide a range of musical activities," he said.
"Our audiences are much less extensively white than you might expect, but it is true to say that right across the world classical music tends to appeal to a predominantly white audience."
The Bollywood initiative forms part of a year long-series of Classic Asia concerts at Symphony Hall.
Rahman took his first rehearsal with the orchestra last week, and said he was nervous at the prospect of his first orchestral engagement on such a scale.
Piali Ray, the Indian dancer and choreographer whose Sampad dance company will perform with CBSO later in the year, praised Birmingham for creating an environment in which community arts could flourish.
Sampad broke new ground with its recent collaboration with the city's Royal Ballet. Birmingham also hosts Samyo, effectively the national youth orchestra for South Asian music.
"There are large sections of the Asian community who are very interested in the arts, but sometimes haven't felt welcomed. Or may be they don't even know there are things that will interest them," she said. "This is really heartening."
The fact that most tickets had already gone showed lessons had been learned on both sides.
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/news/articles/24022004-1.html
Responses:
- Old responses
- From: Periya Naatamai (@ 151.197.192.28)
on: Tue Mar 9 22:04:02 EST 2004
yes Chinna Nattamai, u r very right!!
guys, do u know, that all the producers and directors are literally banging ilaiyaraja's doors begging him to score music for their movies.. but since he is already 'busy' with tons of work (i guess he is working on his 2nd and 3rd sym'po'ny), he turned them down.... All his music albums, especially from 1992 onwards are mega super hits and have surpassed all the sales records... :-)
- From: Vidya (@ 128.84.98.125)
on: Tue Mar 9 22:22:26 EST 2004
Yaaru intha muzhu pooshanikka party!! Vivaram theriyaatha aala irukkaru!
ARR has been churning out beauties of late in KKS and Meenaxi. He also has the hit scores of Boys and E20U18 to his credit!
And this guy comes and says that ARR has been failing for 4 years!!
It is not that TF directors do not want him! It is the other way round!!
- From: mir (@ 220.247.244.205)
on: Tue Mar 9 22:40:01 EST 2004
oooops.......nattamai tfmapage-la kutti pooottu.
- From: vidya (@ 128.84.98.125)
on: Tue Mar 9 23:11:22 EST 2004
Hey mir!
Ina mean panra?
- From: mir (@ 220.247.244.205)
on: Tue Mar 9 23:29:15 EST 2004
well i said real nattamai has given birth to kutti nattamai's in this forum.
- From: Chinna Nattamai (@ 198.232.250.51)
on: Wed Mar 10 10:24:58 EST 2004
For all those hypcrites ..
http://sify.com/movies/tamil/fullstory.php?id=13424213
- From: Vidya (@ 128.84.98.125)
on: Wed Mar 10 18:52:16 EST 2004
Hey c.nattamai
u r losing the whole point again and again!! The media is always bothered about commercial success!! Kannathil Muthamittal won the National Award for both ARR and Mani...
And as for Kadhal Virus, u listen to its songs and then listen to songs like Manmadha Rasa and the off-late item numbers ... U will see the difference!
It is not that I support ARR hardcore... He has given duds like Parashuraam... But overall he has been quite consistent in his quality...
I also did not understand the point in the article... ARR's Boys and E20U18 were sold at high prices.. Why was that not mentioned????
Hence, C. Nattamai, do not thullify too much...
- From: Karthik S (@ 164.164.82.29)
on: Wed Mar 10 22:05:22 EST 2004
Rahman has a bad-hair day
RASHMEE Z. AHMED
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/552514.cms
LONDON: A R Rahman has admitted he made very real mistakes and was less than first-class in his newfound alternative career as India’s first cross-over musical composer to the West and one who dared to take white audiences on an unlikely journey from Beethoven to Bollywood.
"I have written notes about what I have to fix (in myself), more lessons in conducting, one can never stop learning," said Rahman humbly after he was panned for presuming to conduct a landmark concert for one of Europe’s finest, oldest and most venerable orchestras.
Rahman’s comments to TNN come three days after he conducted a concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). It was the first time anywhere in the world that popular Hindi song lists were played by a full 75-piece western symphonic orchestra and it was thought to have broken one of the biggest taboos in the West’s largely "male and pale", classical musical heritage.
Early on Wednesday, Rahman said the unfamiliar experience was "liberating, no clip tracks, no computers running". With his trademark modesty, he admitted the pungent criticism of his performance from British classical music reviewers was accurate, "just what I expected (partly) because it is such a reputed thing".
This is the first time Rahman has been criticised roundly in a Britain that has been impressed by his successful London theatrical collaboration, Bombay Dreams, with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. In a mea culpa, Rahman admitted the concert began ignominiously when he was "trying to start one piece" but couldn’t and had to rev the orchestra up a second time.
The British reviews damned Rahman’s first foray into conducting a western orchestra as "wooden...(a potential) disaster". Somewhat savagely they criticised the CBSO, which is based in Birmingham aka ‘Little Punjab’, for putting on Rahman and "demeaning ...the musical talents of one of Britain’s finest orchestras".
One review significantly waxed more eloquent about the "free samosas" laid on by the organisers rather than Rahman’s music and conducting.
But Rahman, who said he was unfazed by the criticism, insisted he planned to carry on with conducting western orchestras after further training at workshops. "The ice has been broken. The piece I am composing for November will be written specially for an orchestra. This was just my background pieces".
Somewhat defensively, he said he had offered the classical concert’s sell-out, unusually Asian audience a health-warning at the outset. "I said this might sound weird".
In a sign that the man often billed as the "Mozart of Madras" is keen to bring an Indian perspective to the last Western stronghold – its classical musical heritage – Rahman said the concert was "just a start for me to go into the mainstream".
The initial announcement of Rahman’s orchestral foray had surprised Western classical music aficionados. At the CBSO concert, Rahman’s baton was heavy with the weight of history because its very first concert was conducted by the great composer Sir Edward Elgar.
- From: rajasaranam (@ 210.210.34.6)
on: Thu Mar 11 08:00:53 EST 2004
Karthick,
ARR paavam enna pannuvaar. pakkathula Praveen mani illama? . Software loops, computer ithellam illama thaan WCM compose pannanumnnu avarukku yaarumae solli tharala lolssssssssss. Ithellam intha forum la solli ARR fans yaen embarass panreenga. paavam yaerkanavae avanga muzhi pidhungi irukaanga 'ennada namma thalaivarukku WCM theriyaathannu?' hmmmm.....
vaanga thiru, paran , ferrari unga karutha sollunga ROTFL.
- From: curses (@ 203.101.36.201)
on: Thu Mar 11 08:24:55 EST 2004
rs,
Well, he was modest and gracious enuf to admit his mistake in front of a capacity crowd..
and yeah, Do u know that people actually paid to come to the concert... yeah.. they paid to attend the concert, not fund him to compose it!
- From: cn (@ 198.232.250.51)
on: Thu Mar 11 09:28:36 EST 2004
Yeah, people fund IR to get some new music. You people keep paying again,again,again and again for the same recycled stuff. Get ready to pay once more at Broadway, New York to listen to Bombay theme music and shakalaka baby..
- From: * (@ 161.114.64.75)
on: Thu Mar 11 09:41:04 EST 2004
ROTFL @ cn :-))
- From: curses (@ 203.101.36.201)
on: Thu Mar 11 09:41:12 EST 2004
"Yeah, people fund IR to get some new music"
a small correction...
"Yeah, people fund IR IN A HOPE to get some new music"
-
They can keep waiting.
- From: curses (@ 203.101.36.201)
on: Thu Mar 11 09:45:40 EST 2004
I've nuthin personal against IR...
It's jus when ppl put down ARR at face value, w/o even giving him a chance.. leave alone accepting his genius... that really pisses me off.
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