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Festival of Lights Celebration - A Celebration of the Musicof A.R. RahmanINFORMATION AND PRESS

Berklee College of Music awards A.R. Rahman, the Academy Award winning composer of Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, with an honorary doctorate.

The information, press releases contained in this article demonstrate that the Festival of Lights Celebration was an event with a distinguished reputation in the music industry that received recognition from national media outlets and other nationally-recognized organizations.

A.R. Rahman (left) and Alejandro Ramirez

Cisneros (right)

PRESS

Articles About the Festival of Lights Celebration

Watch A.R. Rahman & the Berklee Indian Ensemble Perform One of His ClassicsBillboard, By Natalie Weiner, 3/13/15http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6502043/ar-rahman-berklee-yeh-jo-des-hai-tera

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With Berklee honorary degree, A.R. Rahman comes full circleThe Boston Globe, By Marc Hirsh, 10/26/14http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/10/25/with-berklee-honorary-degree-rahman-comes-full-circle/hjGu55LAXAv1GDpgyvMelI/story.html

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Berklee to confer honourary doctorate on AR RahmanThe Daily Star, Editorial, 10/22/14

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http://www.thedailystar.net/berklee-to-confer-honourary-doctorate-on-ar-rahman-46761

Articles About A.R. Rahman

Review: A. R. Rahman, Full of Bollywood Hits at the BeaconThe New York Times, by Jon Pareles, 5/29/15http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,629407,00.html

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The Mozart of MadrasTime Magazine, By Richard Corliss, 4/25/04 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,629407,00.html

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Watch A.R. Rahman & the Berklee Indian Ensemble Perform One of His ClassicsBillboard, By Natalie Weiner, 3/13/15http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6502043/ar-rahman-berklee-yeh-jo-des-hai-tera

After more than two decades in the business, prolific composer and musician A.R. Rahman -- best known for his sweeping film scores (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, The Hundred Foot Journey) -- recently headed back to school. Specifically, Boston's Berklee College of Music.

During his visit to the college last fall (where he was being awarded an honorary doctorate), Rahman revisited one of his classic songs: "Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera" from the 2004 film Swades. Berklee's Indian

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Ensemble and World Strings, along with Rahman himself on backup vocals, recorded a lush new version inspired by last year's video of the ensemble performing the composer's hit "Jiya Jale."

With 21 singers and 37 instrumentalists, this beautiful rendition really captures the power of the original -- listen below:

Billboard - About Us

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/467859/about-us

The world's premier music publication, Billboard has served the entertainment business since 1894. Beginning as a weekly for the billposting and advertising business, Billboard and its popular music charts have evolved into the primary source of information on trends and innovation in music, serving music fans, artists, top executives, tour promoters, publishers, radio programmers, lawyers, retailers, digital entrepreneurs and many others.

As Billboard's consumer-faced online home, Billboard.com features an extensive array of searchable, playable charts, breaking music news, artist interviews and exclusives, news, video and more. Launched in 1995 as Billboard Online, Billboard.com now attracts well over ten million unique visitors each month in more than 100 countries and has become the de facto digital destination for popular music.

Billboard is headquartered in New York with bureaus in Los Angeles and Miami, and has editorial correspondents in major cities around the globe.

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With Berklee honorary degree, A. R. Rahman comes full circleThe Boston Globe, By Marc Hirsh, 10/26/14http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/10/25/with-berklee-honorary-degree-rahman-comes-full-circle/hjGu55LAXAv1GDpgyvMelI/story.html

A little over two decades ago, a young Indian musician named A. R. Rahman was faced with a choice:  He could head to Boston to attend Berklee College Of Music or he could stay in his home country to score “Roja,” his first film. He picked the latter, beginning a career that, according to the Internet MovieDatabase, is 143 movies strong at the time this is being written (and possibly more by the time you read it).

So when the composer of films such as “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours,” and “Lagaan” accepted hishonorary Berklee doctorate Friday in the midst of a sold-out concert in his honor at Symphony Hall, henoted that he felt he was coming full circle.

He also noted some apprehension at the idea of the event itself, saying, “Whenever I see my songs performed, I'm like, ‘Oh, no.’ But Rahman had nothing but praise for the "amazing band" of student musicians hailing from locales as far-flung as India and Hong Kong and as close as Arlington. With pianist Annette Philip leading them, the Berklee Indian Ensemble easily traversed the unsurprisingly cinematic range of the compositions, from the slow-motion drone and yawing strings of “Bombay Theme” to the spirited percussion and chant of “Chaiyya Chaiyya.”

The orchestra got brief assists from guitarist Prasanna, who appeared for two songs, and 18-year-old bassist Mohini Dey, who stayed for one. Dey’s dense, prog-style playing on “Thee Thee/Malargale” ranged from a nearly sitar-like attack early on to a dizzying slap-and-pop section later; by contrast, Prasanna's solo in the same song was economical in its judicious choices of moments taken.

Bridging the gap between musicianship and pageantry was a choir that also broke out into dance numbers from time to time. And a group of additional dancers flooded the aisles during “Epic Medley,” their joyous grins shining out even in the dark hall.

But it was all in service of Rahman's music, which typically soared. With its high, broken piano chords, “Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa” was gorgeous and ultimately soothing, traveling through unsettling territory to arrive there. And the lovely “Kun Faya Kun," fueled by a drone from a hand-pumped harmonium, was serene but with a clear heartbeat.

For the most part, Rahman himself wasn't involved in the performance, adding only synthesizer to the opening “Bombay Theme” and joining the chorus at the end of the sweeping closer “Vande Mataram.”

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Perhaps he just wanted to listen.

Berklee to confer honourary doctorate on AR RahmanThe Daily Star, Editorial, 10/22/14http://www.thedailystar.net/berklee-to-confer-honourary-doctorate-on-ar-rahman-46761

Berklee College of Music, one of the most renowned colleges of music, is set to confer a honourary doctorate to AR Rahman, a stalwart of Indian music and a globally-renowned composer.Berklee Faculty and students from the Berklee Indian Ensemble will pay tribute to the living legend, who will join them on select pieces in a concert celebrating his music and life at Boston's Symphony Hall.

The Berklee Indian Ensemble, one of largest and most diverse ensembles at the college with members representing 37 countries (including Bangladesh, through vocalist Armeen Musa), has had at least one composition by AR Rahman featured in their repertoire since founding in 2011, and as a tribute to Rahman, have recorded a cover of his ever-recognisable song “Jiya Jale” (from the film “Dil Se”), combining traditional instruments like the sarod to oriental sounds like the dizi (Chinese transverse flute) to eclectic ones like morsing (an Indian variant of the Jew's Harp), in a jazzy, interesting arrangement.

About the Daily Star

The Daily Star established its place in the media scene of Bangladesh on January 14, 1991. It started its journey with a sense of challenge and a feeling of humility to serve this nation as a truly

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independent newspaper. The newspaper made its debt at a historic time when, with the fall of an autocratic regime, the country was well set to begin a new era towards establishing a democratic system of government which eluded Bangladesh for too long.

The Daily Star carries on with the long-term responsibility is to strengthen public opinion on how the democratic system should work and how to sustain and nurture democratic norms effectively.It was a privilege for The Daily Star to be part of a changing scene after the fall of military autocrat in early 1990s. With that privilege came an enormous responsibility of upholding the duties of a free press. The newspaper is proud to pursue that policy without relenting for the past 23 years.

In addition to the online edition, the Daily Star also publishes:

• Print Newspapers• Shout Magazine• Showbiz Magazine• The Star• Nature Quest

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/about-us (Excerpts)

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Review: A. R. Rahman, Full of Bollywood Hits at the BeaconThe New York Times, by Jon Pareles, 5/29/15http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,629407,00.html

Idealism and omnivorousness converge in the music of A. R. Rahman, the hugely prolific Oscar-winning Indian film composer whose Intimate Concert Tour sold out the Beacon Theater on Thursday night.

Mr. Rahman has a huge discography of scores for Indian movies and a growing one for Western films like “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours” and “The Hundred-Foot Journey.” True to the long, wildly eclectic tradition of Bollywood music, his songs are proudly multilingual in both lyrics and musical styles. During the concert, all sorts of allusions came along sooner or later. Raga, Baroque counterpoint, power ballad, reggae, flamenco, bhangra and disco were only part of the checklist.

His gift is making fusions sound natural. They’re not; different cultures have different scales, different rhythms, different harmonies, different expectations of melody and phrasing. They can all lead to lowest-common-denominator music or glaring mismatches. But nothing seems forced in Mr. Rahman’ssongs. A rock beat can carry a winding Carnatic-style vocals; a sliding line played on a wooden Indian flute can intertwine with Western classical arpeggios from a violin. No matter which styles he combines, Mr. Rahman has an ear for yearning tunes and attention-getting hooks. In a set full of his Bollywood hits, the audience often applauded in recognition after just two or three notes.

Mr. Rahman played piano, keyboards and accordion, often accompanying the vocals of Jonita Gandhi,Haricharan Seshadri and Annette Philip; Ms. Philip demonstrated her scat-singing in a jazz segment, as Mr. Rahman slipped on a pair of shades.

Mr. Rahman often stepped forward himself and sang in a hearty tenor, though he joked that the tour was already taking a toll on his voice. He also showed off some new technology: a hand-worn sensor that let him appear to tap notes out of the air.

After so much experience with films, Mr. Rahman made his concert its own kind of narrative, moving through lofty contemplation and yearning romance to dancing for joy.

Ms. Gandhi, who has the kind of weightless, serene, long-breathed soprano that’s essential for Indian playback singers, appeared in a succession of outfits, changing from a modest but colorful Indian dress to a patterned pantsuit under a punky black jacket.

Early in the concert, she sang with the inflections of Indian classical music, and she was gorgeously ethereal in the quiet opening section of “Naane Varugiraen.” But by the time she got to the song “Jiya

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Re,” she was rapping, too.

The concert’s inevitable finale was “Jai Ho,” the song from “Slumdog Millionaire” that won Mr. Rahmanan Academy Award and a Grammy. It had Indian folk roots, a rock beat and an internationally effective hook, and at the end Mr. Rahman and his band raised their fists in a victory salute — a victory over musical provincialism.

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The Mozart of MadrasTime Magazine, By Richard Corliss, 4/25/04 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,629407,00.html

The billboard outside the Broadway Theatre reads, A R RAHMAN'S BOMBAY DREAMS. That name may mean little to musical-theater devotees, but in the rest of the world it's golden. Like Gershwin or Lennon-McCartney, the name stands for melody, quality, energy, instant hummability — a sound both personal and universal, devouring many older forms and transforming them into something gorgeouslynew.

At 38, Rahman is nothing new to fans of Indian films. They know by heart his scores and songs for some 70 movies. And they buy his CDs — do they ever! By some counts, 150 million albums of Rahman music have been sold, which could make him the top-selling artist in recording history.

"It's an approximate count," says Rahman, in a phone chat from London. "If you have a hit film, you'll sell 5 million or 6 million CDs. Of my movies, at least 20 or 25 were really big hits." Mind you, he adds,"in India, we don't get royalties. Otherwise I'd be a very rich man. I wouldn't have to come to America!"

Rahman, who has been jetting from his home and studio in Madras to New York City (for Bombay Dreams) and London (where he is preparing his West End musical of The Lord of the Rings), is a world traveler from way back. Born A.S. Dileep Kumar, he began playing piano at 4, and when his father died five years later, the precocious child hit the road, touring the world with tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. The family converted to Sufi Islam, and Dileep took the name Allah Rakha Rahman.

He studied music at Oxford and returned to Madras to write jingles for an ad agency. In 1992 Tamil director Mani Ratnam chose Rahman, then 26, to be musical director of the movie Roja. Scoring an Indian film means writing the songs (with a lyricist) as well as composing and conducting the background music. Rahman proved a master of it all. His songs were recognizably Indian but paraded a world of musical influences, from raga to reggae, from Broadway to Ennio Morricone, with each tuneheightening the film's drama.

Soon Rahman added commissions for Hindi (Bollywood) films to his workload. In songs for Ratnam's Bombay and Dil Se, and for the Hindi films Vishwavidhaata, Taal and Lagaan, he created a body of work unparalleled, at least in the '90s, for ravishing melodic ingenuity. "I wanted to produce film songs," he says, "that go beyond language or culture." They went beyond India too. As Western film cultists discovered India's pop cinema, they realized that along with the ferocious emoting and delirious dances, there was a master composer — the man Indians call the Mozart of Madras.

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One of Rahman's fans was Andrew Lloyd Webber, who had caught Dil Se on TV and was entranced by Chaiyya Chaiyya, an all-time irresistible bhangra sung on the roof of a speeding train. Lloyd Webber had found not just an inventive composer but also the solution to a vexing problem. "Musical theater had become very predictable," Rahman says. "I think Andrew felt that Bollywood musicals could be a new treat for the Western audience." Bombay Dreams (about half new Rahman songs, halfgreatest hits from his movies) has run for nearly two years in the West End. This week a new version opens on Broadway.

Rahmaniacs will regret the jettisoning of half a dozen solid tunes from the original. (Three songs have been added.) Hardened Broadway regulars may find the show splashy but naive. Still, anyone with half an ear will hear the most vibrant, varied new score in ages. They will leave Bombay Dreams humming Rahman's songs and singing his praises. Broadway, meet Bollywood.