For the Love of Indian Music - Page 2

Originally posted by: arun_8687

Bob Da, Thanks for this wonderful thread 😊

MILES TO GO

Shridevi Keshavan

Sunday, November25, 2007 23:59 IST

Robert Miles is bowled over by Indian music and how

MUMBAI: Chicken curry, sarangi, Bollywood and backpacking in India — Italian musician Robert Miles can't seem to have enough of the country.

"I've backpacked in the country with my girlfriend about 10 times and played here thrice," he smiles. So, is his girlfriend an Indian? "I wish (laughs)! She's from Europe but she too loves the country like me," he adds.
Robert was brought down by Playstation for the Playstation experience in Mumbai last weekend.

He still remembers the first time he heard Indian music and was dumbfounded by the emotionally loaded strains. If you track his music from his early beginnings to his latest work you will find the eventual evolution — the Indian elements finely woven into his compositions. While 'Children' (Miles' response to the kids who were victims of war in Yugoslavia, the pictures of which his father had returned with from a humanitarian mission) and 'Fable' are commercially popular tracks, there is a vast expanse of work Miles has produced and India features in them.

"I started listening to Indian music as a kid. My uncle had records of musicians such as Robert Miles, Pt Ravi Shankar and Trilok Gurtu. I love the rhythm part of Indian music and I think the music is very emotional. I could relate it to traditional Italian music which is also emotionally rich and I wanted to offer people emotionally strong music," he explains. The composer is working on two new albums.

So what has experience been with Indian musicians such as Nitin Sawhney and Trilok Gurtu?
"Nitin is very talented. He can play so many instruments and I love his work. Trilok is another genius, very calm and great pleasure to work with," he smiles.

One of his other interesting work includes the collaboration with Amelia Cuni on a track called 'Bhairav', a Berlin based vocalist who practices the 'dhrupad' style. "She's very talented and I'm planning to do a whole album with her. The only problem is the clashing schedules," he says.

For someone who played the piano as a kid, then moved on to Dj-ing at the age of 14, the experience has been worth it.

"I used to play a lot of soul and hip-hop and only used the computers when I started out. I have moved on to electronic music and include a lot of live instrumentation," he observes adding that his interest largely lies in Hollywood. The composer has worked on the Matt Damon superhit 'The Bourne Identity'.

"I would like to do more independent film projects," Robert signs off.

'Indian music very popular in South Korea'

Chennai, Nov 29: Artistes Yeo Mi-Do and Kim Hyeong-Suk are excited - they say people in South Korea love listening to Indian music and that they want to fuse the music and dance of the two countries.

"Indian music is very popular in South Korea, everyone is listening to it. May be after this visit we can create a composition that will have an India song with Korean instruments playing for both Indian and South Korean dancers," Kim said.

Yeo and Kim are respectively the lead dancer and musicianwith the National Theatre of Korea, touring India this month on an invitation from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

The National Theatre of Korea, set up in 1950, is the first federally managed theatre in Asia and has four resident companies. Last year, the National Drama Company of Korea - one of the constituents - performed at the Indian International Performing Arts Festival, and in its partnership initiative, it has invited seven Indian performers to stage their work on the South Korean stage.

Two other included companies, the National Dance Company and the National Orchestra of Korea, through their overseas performances, are attempting to introduce traditional South Korean dance and music to India.

"Musical similarities are many," says Kim. Music in East Asia, China, South Korea do have similar threads running through them and Indian music is simply gorgeous. "In rhythm, melodies, in the nature of the instruments," he adds.

Modified instruments like the 25-string gayageum, 10-string daeajaeng, and modeeumbuk are being introduced to the world.

In the Indian tour this year has been included the "Nam-do-Arirang", a piece of chamber music composed for Orchestra Asia in which South Korean musicians work with the Chinese and the Japanese.

There is also an item in the repertoire in which African rhythm accompanies the very traditional music of the Kyung-ki region of South Korea that has been brought to Indian audiences.

In between are short strains of "Salaam-e-Ishq" and "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna", played to the accompaniment of Korean instruments.

Last year two Indian artistes were with the Orchestra, playing the tabla and the flute, and they also learnt to play the bo-kh drum, a traditional percussion instrument used in martial arts performances.

"Both Indians and South Koreans are very rhythmic people," he says, adding, "Koreans buy a lot of Indian music."

Dancer Yeo has been on stage for 40 years. "Like in India, in South Korea too experience counts in the performing arts," Yeo says.

There are three main kinds of dances in South Korea, the folk, the devotional and for the elite, something like court dancing, she says.

Yeo, on her third visit to India, had seen some Manipuri performances in South Korea in an exchange programme. She hopes now to catch up with kathak and bharatanatyam, and then come up with a fusion.

"Introducing thematic dancing from South Korea to India is not an easy task," she says.

The hae-gum solo tries expressing feelings one would have watching the sunrise after spending a night on the snow-covered Sul-ak mountain.

The spring dance is the soliloquy of a flower, accompanied by the calm ga-ya-gum music. The fan dance is the most famous dance from South Korea, created by the well known choreographer Choi Seung-hui in the 1940s.

For producer Lim Sang-Woo, the India "tour has been a great experience".

"Now the world is going global and countries must know more about one another's culture," he says, hoping to bring to India, the land of dance and music, more of South Korea's traditional music and dancing blended with the modern.

Bureau Report