The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Out to amalgamate musical ideas

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Sunday, Oct 28, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Out to amalgamate musical ideas

“Though I am in total awe of Carnatic music, I have a soft corner for Hindustani music”

— PHOTO: M. KARUNAKARAN

Sai Shravanam

As a child he was drawn to the sound of the tabla. While playfully experimenting on the instrument, he acquired a taste for music, which later intensified and became his driving force. Through his company Resound India 27-year-old Sai Shravanam is eager to bring the best of performers and their artistry together to create beautiful music. Meera Srinivasan caught up with him.

When maestro Zakir Hussain once heard him play and offered tutelage the teenager could not believe it. Tabla lessons with the legend and his brother Fazal Quereshi honed his skills. “Though I am in total awe of Carnatic music, I must confess that I have a soft corner for Hindustani music,” he smiles.

Having accompanied leading artists, including Aruna Sayeeram, Bombay Jayashri, Parveen Sultana, eminent dancers such as Chitra Visweswaran and Leela Samson, and noted film music directors, Sai finds himself totally in love with the magic of sound.

After completing his Bachelors in Computer Science and MCA he took a certificate exam in music production from Berkeley University. He values his stint as a speech and sound specialist at the Computer Science Department of IIT-M .

Window of opportunity

After this, Sai went through a phase of disillusionment, not knowing what spin life would take. An ardent devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, he met Grammy awards’ nomination committee member William Rogers at Kodaikanal, where the spiritual guru was staying once. “A random conversation about fixing microphones opened a new window of opportunities when I least expected it,” he says. The sound engineering expert has invited Sai Shravanam to work with him. “Your unique abilities as a classically trained musician and recording producer align nicely with my experience as musician/producer and I believe you have a lot to offer the Los Angeles recording community,” he wrote to Sai recently. Sai will shortly leave for the U.S. to work at Fox Studios.

His Chennai-based company has a wing in Bangalore. “We do signature tunes for corporates, sound tracks for animation movies and jingles there. This generates enough money to invest in my musical ventures here.”

His company’s first album, the recently-launched ‘Confluence of elements’ marketed by Saregama, is doing well, he says. “I was careful not to disturb the traditional pieces with the instrumentation.”

The album features vocalist Bombay Jayashri, sarangi artist Murad Ali, flautist Navin Iyer, guitarist Keith Peters and veena artist Bhavani Prasad. “It is an amalgamation of musical ideas, rather than a fusion. That has been my mission and always will be,” he says, as a sample of his next production starts to play.

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