Tomorrow, to celebrate the 73rd Independence Day, violin maestro Dr. L. Subramaniam will digitally launch a five-minute video, ‘Vande Mataram’, which can be viewed on YouTube and on his Facebook page from 8 a.m onwards.
“It will be a joy to see two months of our hard work come alive through this video. It brings together 73 musicians and features 150 tracks of orchestral arrangement that were specially recorded in Europe for this piece,” says Subramaniam, speaking over the phone from his Bengaluru residence.
Two aspects make this video special: It is the first time since the lockdown that 57 instrumentalists have come together live for a special orchestral recording. The video features the Subramaniam family — wife Kavita, children Bindu, Ambi and Narayana, and grand-daughter Mahati Subramaniam. “Kavita has always been a part of my major projects and in ‘Vande Mataram’, she has handled the lyrics apart from singing. I have composed the piece, a blend of orchestral symphony and vocals,” says Subramaniam.
How different is ‘Vande Mataram’ from his recent collaborative work, ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, released online two months ago? “After my tour of Australia and New Zealand, the lockdown was announced and we were confined to our homes. That’s when I thought how the whole world seems like one family. I used the London Symphony Orchestra with the Bharat Symphony-Movement 4 theme that I had composed earlier. The uncertainty continues. My tours for collaborations and live performances for Independence Day celebrations in the U.S. were cancelled. So I decided to come up with something special.”
Subramaniam wrote each note for the score that was e-mailed to the conductor for him to plan the orchestral arrangement. “I am thankful to Irish-American music director and conductor Derek Gleeson for his involvement in the recording during such a crisis,” says Subramaniam.
The music team
‘Vande Mataram’ has actor-politician Hema Malini singing as well as performing abhinaya for the lyrics. Actors like Mohanlal and Juhi Chawla have sung a few lines. Besides these, the video features renowned singers S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Kumar Sanu, Hariharan, Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal as well as leading instrumentalists Ronu Majumdar (flute), Debashish Bhattacharya (slide guitar) Tanmoy Bose (tabla), and Sanjeev Nayak and Ambi (violin).
The piece is based on raga Kirvani, chosen for the flexibility it offers to move from one pitch to another.