http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastlife/story.html? id=3892425c-ca7b-4997-b5ec-e37614197926
------------------------------------- A.R Rahman is riding a global wave of enthusiasm for India's films and musicals, a genre he helped define .... When most people think of Bollywood, they picture colourful movies with energetic dancing and larger-than-life characters. But there is much more to Bollywood than that. It's a cultural phenomenon that is sweeping the western world, providing creative inspiration for everyone from fashion designers to home decorators and even the television producers of The Simpsons. Bollywood enters the limelight in Vancouver on Sunday when composer A.R. Rahman, dubbed "the Mozart of the Madras" by Time magazine, takes the stage at the Pacific Coliseum as part of his 3rd Dimension North American Tour. The show is expected to attract a "big audience," says Rahman's promoter, Raj Subramaniam, adding that his first concert tonight in San Francisco sold out days in advance. "He's a worldwide phenomenon," Subramaniam explains. Not even the international cult fame of composer Ennio Morricone -- awarded an honorary Oscar this year for his 400-odd soundtracks -- can touch the popularity of Rahman, sometimes claimed to be the best- selling composer in recorded history. The BBC estimates Rahman has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. He has scored for over 80 films and six albums comprising more than 600 songs. Born in 1967 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Rahman is rooted in the southern tradition of Indian music. He is the son of composer R.K. Sekhar, and his biography reads like one of his movies. His career began as an instrumentalist at age nine, following his father's untimely death. By age 17, he was creating jingles for TV commercials. Rahman earned a scholarship to study classical music at Oxford University in England, earning his first hit at age 25 with his soundtrack for the film Roja in 1992. He collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber for the stage musical Bombay Dreams in 2002, and also created the music for the stage version of The Lord of the Rings which premiered in Toronto in 2006. Mainstream Western audiences have had limited exposure to Rahman's film work (more than 100 titles and counting); the soundtracks to Lagaan (2001) and Water (2005) are perhaps his best known. Rahman is quite modest about his accomplishments, attributing all his successes to Allah. He recently told an ABC/Australia reporter: "When I got my first break I thought, 'I want our music to go around the world, being appreciated by all people around the globe.' "So that made me take efforts to do little changes, changing the beats and getting harmonies and chord progressions and stuff like that, with traditional Indian melodies. And I think something magic happened." He admits his perfectionism has given him a reputation for being difficult; some of the playback singers featured on his soundtracks have called him a tyrant. Rahman shrugs off such criticism, seeing himself as a composer for hire along with the rest of a film's crew. He wowed Los Angeles last season with a Hollywood Bowl spectacular that combined song, dance, and projected movie clips. His Vancouver appearance promises more of the same, with a troupe of more than 100 performers. -A
