Sonu Nigam's 'Rafi Resurrected' tour in UK
By Bollywood Hungama News Network, July 23, 2008 - 12:20 IST
Last week Sonu Nigam was with his new album 'Rafi Resurrected' on tour in UK. He was accompanied by the worldwide acknowledged and award winning City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) with its conductor Michael Seal.
The grand finale of the tour took place on July 20th in London Coliseum which was completely sold out. In front of the mostly Indian audience and supported by the female singer Gunjan Singh, Sonu Nigam sang 16 songs of the highly adored Indian singer Mohammad Rafi, who passed away in 1980.
Along with the great 75-piece symphony orchestra Sonu Nigam enthused the whole audience. Many of them have never before attended to a symphony concert and came only to listen to the old classical Rafi songs. But even the most sceptical Rafi fans got convinced by the outstanding performance of the singer and the orchestra and showed their enthusiasm by a thunderous applause during and a non-ending standing ovation at the end of the show.
Sonu Nigam, who is a dedicated Rafi fan since his childhood, was quite nervous before the concert. For him it was an extra-ordinary honour to take part on this project and to be considered as the singer for the album and the tour.
Normally adding his own values to the songs, this time Sonu Nigam stuck very closely to the originals, which was highly appreciated by the audience. At the beginning of the concert, the musicians of the orchestra and audience were standing up from their seats and had a minute of silence in remembrance of Mohammad Rafi.
This concert tour was not only something special, but also very unique; never before Indian classical music was newly-arranged by and for a Western symphonic orchestra and performed along with an Indian singer. The huge success of the three-city-tour in UK motivates SAREGAMA, as the organizer of the tour, to think about continuing it in Europe or even worldwide. The Berlin Philharmonie Hall (home of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) might be considered as one of the potential extended tour stops.
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