Rahman's Oscar nominations trigger big interest in his music
9 hours ago
TORONTO A.R. Rahman has mesmerized Bollywood fans for almost two decades, but
a whole new
audience is now discovering the Oscar-nominated composer, says the CEO of a
company that has
just released an album featuring his music.
Rahman has three Academy Award nominations for his work on "Slumdog
Millionaire."
"I think what that movie did was put his music in front of an audience that
never listened to
him before, appreciated before, and now is finding it of interest to them,"
said Vinodh Bhat,
CEO of New York-based Saavn, which recently released "Masters of Bollywood: A.
R. Rahman."
"What essentially we did is look back in our library of hundreds of thousands
of audio tracks
we have, plus of new releases, and take what we thought the best of A. R.
Rahman was and
present that to ... music listeners, music fans around the world that
instantaneously became
fans of his after watching the movie," Bhat said.
The album is available for downloading through a variety of online vendors. Its
highlights
include tracks from last year's Bollywood superhit movie "Jodha Akbar" and the
forthcoming film
"Delhi-6".
"The buzz in the Bollywood community is that this ('Delhi-6') is one of the
best A. R. Rahman
soundtracks ever, which we thought was interesting given the fact that he's won
all these
awards for 'Slumdog Millionaire' so far," Bhat said.
Rahman, 43, became a household name in India in 1992 when he won the National
Film Award for
his debut movie "Roja." He has since been Bollywood's most sought-after
composer, working on
some 150 films.
According to one estimate, Rahman has sold more than 100 million CDs and 200
million cassettes.
The composer/songwriter/singer has collaborated with western entertainers
before, but his big
break came when he won the Golden Globe for the "Slumdog" score last month.
"My win is a win for Indian music. And I want to bring India more and more
recognition in the
field of music," he told People magazine.
Rahman seems well aware that India's movie-crazy citizens want him to come up
big on Feb. 22 -
Oscar night.
"I feel like one of our sportspersons at the Olympics who is being told to
bring home a gold
medal," he was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
"I hope I don't let people in India, who are expecting me to win the Oscar,
down."
On the Internet:
http://www.arrahman.com
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iQ2zjCZDRQy5bxNItW6uPP68ZLYA
