Bowled 'em over
After a successful show at the Hollywood Bowl, virtuoso A R Rahman is keen to take his act to newer shores
Subhash K Jha
| A R Rahman |
The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where Rahman performed
AR Rahman's historic concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles last month was another international coup for our favourite composer. Recalling the exhilarating experience Rahman says, "They had been trying to contact us the whole of last year. Finally, I let them on to my events manager. When I was earlier honoured at the Hollywood Bowl, I had met the people concerned. When I had performed in LA in 2000, I had expected a non-Indian audience. But a lot of Asians had come, which was fantastic. But this time, it was a global audience at the Bowl."
The concert, held on July 16, was attended by 18,000 people. "Eighty per cent of them them were foreigners. More than an endorsement of my music it was an acknowledgement of the Indian film industry. I hate to call Hindi cinema 'Bollywood'. But that's what we represented at the Hollywood Bowl," the singer says.
Did Rahman not have qualms about performing Indian music before a Western audience? "The doubts I had about our music being appealing to the West were finally cleared. Our sincerity was quite clear to them. It took me years to become unapologetic about our music performed before a western audience. I now realised that the gift God has given me is the gift I need to use to the fullest in any part of the world. That's exactly what I did at the Bollywood Bowl that evening. It was the first time that my musicians and I felt such pride in doing our own thing," he recounts. "I started the evening with Bombay Dreams, which the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra performed, followed by Dil Se, Rang De Basanti, and the rest of my repertoire. Then we played choral arrangements of my songs from Mani Ratnam's films with a group called Global Rhythms. They're students from Miami University. These kids had been following my music for years. They all flew to LA at their own expense because they wanted to play with me."
How did he feel about staging his act at a venerable venue like the Hollywood Bowl which has witnessed worthies like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, The Beatles, and others? "I wasn't thinking of the fact that the Beatles or Pink Floyd performed at the Hollywood Bowl. I was just thinking of what I was supposed to do there. I got great support from my musicians like Hariharan, Sukhwinder, Madhushree and Sadhana Sargam. Two local dance groups from LA danced to 'Rang de basanti' and 'Sona sona' (Bombay Dreams).
And no sooner has he returned from that successful sojourn, than Rahman is again prompted to navigate international waters. "I'm confident about hitting other cities in Europe, Russia, China and Japan with similar concerts. If it worked in America, especially LA where the cream of the crowd lives, it can work anywhere. And I feel it's not only me who's moving forward. It's the entire Indian music industry. I made a big sacrifice when I did the musical Bombay Dreams some years ago in England, leaving behind several lucrative offers in Mumbai and Chennai in the process. I think the gambit has finally paid off," he says.
This time Rahman isn't going to let his movie assignments suffer on account of his travels. "More international concerts are going to happen now. But not too frequently. I was supposed to have an international concert tour in September which I've postponed because of my movie assignments."
• The doubts I had about our music appealing to the West were finally cleared. It took me years to become unapologetic about presenting our music to a western audience – A R Rahman
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