[Assam] Assamese musician is the lone guitarist for Israeli opera

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

While his guitar gently charms
                            - An Assamese musician is the lone guitarist for Israeli opera                                                                 MAITREYEE BORUAH                                                                                                                                                              A scene from the musical Bharati                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Guwahati, Aug. 11: Assamese musical wizardry  is going places. Israel, to be precise.
                                                                                Guwahati-based music director Aniruddha Baruah is the lone guitarist for an Israeli musical, Bharati, which has become one of the biggest “Indian hits” since Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams. 
                                                                                Baruah is among 100 Indian musicians and dancers who have been touring West Asia and Europe with the colourful opera, a production of Israeli Bollywood junkie Gashash Deshe. 
                                                                                After a successful first phase of the tour, the troupe is all set for another stint, starting September. 
                                                                                “I was invited to Mumbai to audition for the opera produced by Deshe last year. They liked my style of playing the guitar and chose me to be the lone guitarist in the musical,” beamed Aniruddha, taking a brief break from his hectic schedule. 
                                                                                “Playing for the opera and travelling around the world has been a great experience. I am looking forward to the second phase of the world tour,” he said. 
                                                                                Deshe, a self-confessed fan of Bollywood and all things Indian, zeroed in on tinsel town choreographers Jojo Khan and Raju Sundaram to direct his lavish hourlong production. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  He also roped in Prakash Patel and Sajjad Ali to score the music for his “Bharatiya” love story set against the sand dunes of Rajasthan. 
                                                                                The story of Bharati revolves around Siddharth, an Indian-born engineer based in the US, whose work (on a Ganga-cleaning project) brings him to Varanasi. It is in this holy city that he meets the mysterious Bharati. Falling in love with her becomes for the hero a process of inner transformation, a homecoming. 
                                                                                The love story is presented through 14 Bollywood chartbusters, interwoven with Hebrew lore. 
                                                                                Model Gagan Malik and actress Bhavana Pani, who played the lead roles in the first phase, will be replaced in the next, Baruah revealed.
                                                                                Baruah’s tryst with music began early, jamming with friends with an ear for melody and rhythm. But Baruah knew his love for music was more than just a childhood passion. Earning a masters degree in geology in 1989, the talented musician turned down lucrative job offers to make his passion his profession.
                                                                                Baruah began to taste the rewards soon after, when Jue Poora Sun, for which he scored music, bagged the award for the best film on environment conservation at the 51st National Film Awards. 
                                                                                Then followed background scores for critically acclaimed and award-winning films — Raag Birag, Gun Gun Gaane Gaane and Adaijya. He also has several hit music albums to his credit.
                                                                                International exposure and fame, however, have not loosened the roots binding him to his hometown. “I am not going to leave Guwahati — the place where I learnt my music. I want to work and contribute to the growth and development of Assamese music. But at the same time I would like to explore avenues all over the globe,” he signed off.

 				
---------------------------------
Want to be your own boss? Learn how on  Yahoo! Small Business. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20060812/60a400c1/attachment.htm>