My experience with A.R. Rahman (1 Viewer)

[ThomasC]

For those of you who don't know who A.R. Rahman is, he is the most popular score composer for Bollywood films, at least as far as I know. This past weekend, I had the incredible honor of performing "Chale Chalo" from the Oscar nominated movie (for Best Foreign Film) "Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India" along with the rest of the Miami University Collegiate Chorale and Global Rhythms Ensemble as part of his worldwide tour titled "Unity of Light." On Friday night, we performed near Detroit in the Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center, and Saturday night, we performed in Nassau Coliseum (home of the NHL's New York Islanders) to a sold-out crowd (of around 15,000 people)! The Detroit performance was the most surreal thing I've ever experienced. The crowd of a few thousand really liked us (we saw some people standing up to clap in the middle of the song!), and it was my first time performing for such a large audience, with the exception of singing the national anthem before a New York Mets game with the Collegiate Chorale last May, but the crowd was there for a baseball game, not for the music. The performance at Nassau was pretty good as well, but the crowd wasn't as hot for us as they were in Detroit. Even so, a representative from Steven Seagal Enterprises said he might be interested in having us perform a piece for a future Disney film!!! Not only that, but the New York performance was recorded for future release on DVD!!! My only regret is not bringing my Lagaan DVD for Rahman to autograph, but all in all, this weekend was an absolute blast, all thanks to the directors and performers of the ensemble I'm in, and especially A.R. Rahman!!! [/rant]

 

[DaveCheung]

Rahman was on tour in US and performed in NY yesterday?!?? Too bad I didn't know about this...I've been a casual fan after watching some movies directed by Mani Rathnam that he scored and the songs in "Lagaan" were great.

 

[Mario Bartel]

Great story ThomasC! Thanks for sharing. I just watched Lagaan last week (it took me three afternoons!) and I absolutely loved the movie, especially the music!

 

[ThomasC]

Three years later, and Chorale is performing with Rahman again, but now we're doing a lot more with him. Vasundhara Das (who played Aditi Verma in Monsoon Wedding) is performing along with us, along with many other professionals involved with the Bollywood film music industry. Vasundhara has been hanging around the campus the entire week, sitting in on rehearsals and such. Chorale has been busting its balls working on the music in a short timeframe (we performed with Dave Brubeck in early March, so we've only had a month and a half to work on most of the music), and the concerts in Michigan and Ohio are coming up really soon (PM me if you want more information).

Oh, and he signed my Lagaan DVD this time around.

 

[ThomasC]

Oscar bump I am so happy for him! A fellow member of my college choir was a backup singer on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, and I believe she helped orchestrate some of Rahman's songs for the soundtrack and a few of his other soundtracks as well.