The Score Magazine - Archive August 2009 Issue | Page 52

The Score Magazine | Turnaround Tunes
g The Hungarian Heritage House is run by
the Hungarian Tourism Ministry.
g It is open for all musicians alike as long as
they learn sheet music
g It has a top-of-the-line studio and perfor-
mance hall where concerts are staged
choice of films, which haven’t quite made… waves, one may delicately
say.
“Kathai is going to be a different story altogether,” he says of his latest
movie. Anything special, I routinely ventured. “Two of the songs were
recorded completely live” The live trip again, I thought. Next. Any inter-
esting singers? ““Well…,” he trailed off smirking ever-so-slightly “There
is this one song sung by Shankar Mahadevan” Nice. “and there’s also
Naka Muka Chinnaponnu and…,” Ah, and? “Balamurali Krishna” I was
impressed but not swayed. Not until he said “All in one song” I shot
upright. He put my apprehensions to rest when he explained that the
entire song was shot live and appears in the movie as a concert. And no
they do NOT sing together; just one after the other. Hallelujah. Some-
thing to watch for.
But wait, there’s more. Borrowing elements from global music types is
one thing, but with Paul it’s on a whole new level. Listening and copying
isn’t his thing. So what did he do? Packed his Macintosh PC, collected
the Director and flew off to Hungary. Enter the Hungarian Heritage
House. A repository of unique European Gypsy performers, the centre
also serves as a training and performance space rolled into one. Lapping
up as much as he could Paul promises some “exciting new stuff” from
Hungary with a lot of verve and a shot of whiskey!
He then decided to treat me to a sampling of the tracks composed for
Kathai and his next, Katradhu Kalavu. The conversation then meandered
to random topics from general genres to Germany, dogs as pets and
literary interests from Kurals to the Kama Sutra.
As it were, Paul is trying to revive the practice of playing, recording and
promoting live music in films. Here’s hoping he makes a difference. After
all, in his own words, “It’s what we live for!”
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Number of dogs that Paul and his wife
have taken in and raise at their place
in Pallavaram. Mostly strays, they work
with a network of couples across town
who are into rehabilitating dogs
42
Songs in English that Paul has composed
over the years but never recorded. Even
if a bunch of them have been recorded,
releasing them is another game altogeth-
er. Soon perhaps!