LONDON – A new Bollywood orchestra is set to stage a regular series of performances to pay tribute to some of India’s most famous composers, with a group of talented artistes bringing iconic Hindi film tunes to life on stage in the UK.
The London Bollywood Orchestra will perform its first show on October 5 at Wilton’s Music Hall in East London. It is a historic venue with a history dating back to the 1850s and is often used as a film set.
It has been chosen as the ideal venue for singers Rekha and Naveen Kundra to perform accompanied by a talented 15-member orchestra using a wide range of instruments ranging from tablas and dholaks to flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitar and violin.
“We wanted a variety show that would give us a diversity of decades and genres, covering music from the 1940s to today,” Tim Potier, music director of the new project, told PTI.
He added, “When you’re performing live music, everything is spontaneous, almost like being on the edge. Old Bollywood tracks had that same nervous energy as they were often recorded in a very short time, with a small number of microphones but hundreds of artistes. So, the London Bollywood Orchestra will bring that magic to the stage, bringing everything to life right now.”
This new project marks a very natural progression for the Belgian-born, London-based composer, who worked with A.R. Rahman on his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra concerts in the early 2000s.
This was followed by a Mohammed Rafi album and concert series with Sonu Nigam, shows with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and the BBC Philharmonic celebrating the music of RD Burman. Most recently, the ‘Lata Mangeshkar: Bollywood Legend’ concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall in July last year as part of the BBC’s annual summer orchestral music season, known as the Proms, sold out all tickets.
“The live experience is always more exciting. We wanted to keep that magic going, and so we thought about creating a musical theatre-sized group that could travel, go to many different places and connect with more people,” said Pottier.
He said, “Wilton, which is used as a film set and has a very rich history as a music hall where sailors used to come hundreds of years ago, seems a perfect fit for a Bollywood concert. It’s almost like going back to one of those magical Bollywood sets of the 1960s-70s when RD Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan and Laxmikant-Pyarelal were creating that wonderful music.”
He is accompanied by Saurabh Shivkumar, a fellow arranger of the Lata Mangeshkar Prom and one of the guitarists in the orchestra, besides musicians with West End credits. The seed for the idea came from Indian music lover Vimal Anandapura, whose love for RD Burman classics will come to the fore as part of an eclectic set-list made up of some complete songs and some medleys.
The ultimate goal of the new London Bollywood Orchestra is to not only connect with Hindi film fans, but also to reach out to a wider audience who are drawn to the rich music of Bollywood.
“Bollywood music is incredibly diverse, there are songs that are steeped in the Hindustani tradition and then there are songs that are influenced by 1960s-70s pop and funk. I think musically, there’s something to appeal to everybody at a Bollywood show. And, at a place like Wilton, there’s going to be a really mixed audience, there’s going to be some who are just curious about the music and then there are the real fans who bring excitement to hearing their favorite songs,” said Pottier.
This article is generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
