 'Mozart Meets India' CD is ready
Chennai-based Tamil Maiyam
has announced that its second music album titled 'Mozart Meets India' (the earlier one was 'Thiruvasagam in Symphonic Oratorio by Ilayaraja') would be released in Chennai on August 25, 2006.
The album is a "global soundtrack based on six Indian ragas", said Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj, founder of Tamil Maiyam. A live performance would be held on August 25 to mark the release of the CD and cassettes.
"We have kept intact the rules, the grammar, discipline and the identity of the six Carnatic ragas of Sankarabharanam, Kapi, Panthuvarali, Bilahari, Sindhu Bhairavi and Hamsananthi. It is unlike popular fusion," said Fr
Jegath.
"The objective of 'Mozart Meets India' is to enable Indian classical music resonate globally, explore and create music that would transcend genres, cross cultures and become an attractive soundtrack for the world and make Indian classical music relevant to the modern generation," he added.
Nellai Jesuraj, a young musician from the southern Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, who is yet to complete his schooling, has composed and orchestrated the album, Fr Jegath said. He is well versed in Carnatic and Western music.
Jesuraj claimed that in a song using the raga 'Sankarabaranam', (major scale in Western classical), a particular pattern of 11:8 beats based on timings, has been used. "Only well-known classical singer Bombay Jaishree could have done justice to this number," he said.
Eminent musicians like Kadri Gopalnath, O S Arun, Embar Kannan and Arun Pandian, who plays the lead guitar, to world music icon Carlos Santana, have contributed to the album. The orchestral ensemble comprised 27 violins, 11 violas, two cellos, brass and traditional percussion instruments, numbering more than 60 instrumentalists. In all 40 chorus singers have also helped create the album.
The final sound mix was done in the US by Ian Cross, who does mixing for world famous performers like Janet Jackson, Jessica Simpson and director Manoj Night Shyamalan, Fr Jegath said.
During the launch programme on August 25, a theme song for world peace and harmony, written by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, will be rendered by the 70-member Madras Youth Choir, he said.
Karunanidhi would chair the function, while Union Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni will be the chief guest. Union ministers Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja would be among those participting in the function, Fr Jegath said.
R Rangaraj
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