http://www.musicindiaonline.com/n/i/top_stories/2869/
New York, Feb 23 : An Oscar award would be a 'great honour' and help do 'bigger
things', says Indian music maestro A.R. Rahman, a hot favourite to take home a
trophy for his music in 'Slumdog Millionaire'.
"It would be a great honour," Rahman told the New York Times in a telephone
interview from Los Angeles, where he was preparing to perform at the ceremony.
"It would help me to do bigger things."
Asked to elaborate, Rahman named "some Western directors he would like to work
with". "Baz Luhrmann... Ridley Scott. I'm a big fan of Ridley."
The Times notes Rahman is "one of the most prolific and successful film
composers in India". He has three nominations for Danny Boyle's "Slumdog
Millionaire" - best original score and best original song, for "Jai Ho" and "O
... Saya", a collaboration with the Sri Lankan-British rapper M.I.A.
Rahman, 43, has already won a Golden Globe for best score for "Slumdog
Millionaire".
"I like to see a film and then start scoring it in my mind, while doing
something unrelated," the maestro said. "You just grasp a film and start
working, and something unpredictable comes out from a third element. The mind,
the more active it is, the more productive it is."
Talking about his work on the most-talked about film of the recent times,
Rahman said: "I kept three weeks aside. I moved to London and did the whole
score there."
David Novak, an ethnomusicologist at the Heyman Center for the Humanities at
Columbia University, said Rahman is "sort of the Peter Gabriel of the Indian
film industry".
"He shifted things from a simple East-West mode to a multicultural, global
mode, where India and its regional musics are part of a palette of sound from
around the world," Novak added.
Andrew Lloyd Weber, who worked with the composer for the West End musical
"Bombay Dreams", said, "I've long been impressed by his talent, and I'm so
pleased that Hollywood has recognized it."
But Rahman said he was yet to prepare his Oscar acceptance speech ready as he
was busy meeting various directors and record labels in Los Angeles.
