The Score Magazine - Archive April 2009 issue! | Page 10

The Story
Unfolds
Tripti Gandhi
B
efore coming here I was both nervous and excited. The only
time I felt like this was before my marriage said AR Rahman
before accepting his first Oscar earlier this year. From a shy and
reticent young man preferring to let his work speak to making
an all-Hollywood ensemble smile with that line, Rahman has indeed tra-
versed a long journey.
Tracking the spectacular growth and popularity of Rahman’s music, it is
evident that every half a decade or so comes a powerful thrust that or-
bits him into a completely new territory devoid of any competition what-
soever. Consider this :
1992 – Roja – a soundtrack with a refreshingly fresh approach. A sound
that India had never heard before.
1997 – Just when people were settling down to ‘the Rahman sound’,
Vande Mataram happened. A completely new genre of music that mixed
the unconventional with the traditional and gave the youth of the na-
tion something to think and hum about. Rahman also became the first
south Asian artiste to be signed up by Sony music. “Okay so he has done
a few films and an album which most of the Bollywood composers do,
so what?” commented a Mumbai filmmaker a few years after Vande Ma-
tram had released. He would soon find out!
2002 - Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams with Rahman’s music
opened at London’s West End to packed houses and critical acclaim mak-
ing Rahman an international celebrity.