New London Bollywood Orchestra to bring iconic film songs alive on stage

London Bollywood Orchestra will kick off with its inaugural show on October 5 at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London, a historic venue dating back to the 1850s and often serving as a film set.

It has been chosen as an ideal setting for singers Rekha and Navin Kundra to croon along with a talented 15-piece orchestra composed of a diverse range of instruments from tabla and dholak to flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitars and violins.

“We wanted a diverse show which gives us a span of decades and a span of styles, with music from the 1940s right up to the present day,” Tim Pottier, the music director of the new project told PTI.

“When you are performing live music, everything is spontaneous, almost like living on the edge. The old Bollywood tracks used to have that same nervous energy because they were often recorded in a very short time with a small number of microphones but hundreds of performers. So, the London Bollywood Orchestra will be bringing some of that everything-is-alive-right-now magic to stage,” he said.

The new project marks a very natural progression for the Belgium-born London-based musician, who worked with A.R. Rahman in the early noughties on his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra concerts.

This was followed by a Mohammed Rafi album and concert series with Sonu Nigam, shows with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and BBC Philharmonic celebrating the music of R.D. Burman. Most recently, there was the sell-out ‘Lata Mangeshkar: Bollywood Legend’ concert in July last year as part of the BBC’s annual summer season of orchestral music, known as the Proms, at Royal Albert Hall in London.

“The live experience is always more exhilarating. We wanted that magic to continue, and so we thought about doing a music theatre-sized ensemble that can travel around, go to many different places and connect with more people,” said Pottier.

“Wilton’s, which is used as a film set and has a very rich history as a music hall with sailors coming in here hundreds of years ago, just feels fitting for a Bollywood concert. It’s almost like being back in one of those Bollywood sets from that magical 1960s-70s era when R.D. Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan and Laxmikant-Pyarelal were making that phenomenal music,” he said.

He is joined by Saurabh Shivakumar, a fellow arranger from the Lata Mangeshkar Prom who is also one of the guitarists in the orchestra, and musicians with West End credits under their belt. The germ of the idea came from Indian music lover Vimal Anandpura, whose love of R.D. Burman classics will play out as part of an eclectic set-list made up of some full songs and some medleys.

The ultimate vision of the new London Bollywood Orchestra is to not only connect with Hindi film fans but also reach out to a wider audience who are drawn to Bollywood’s rich musical repertoire.

“Bollywood music is incredibly varied, there are songs that are richly influenced by Hindustani tradition and then the more pop and funk-influenced songs of the 1960s-70s. I think musically, there’s something to draw everybody into a Bollywood show. And, there will be a real mixed audience in a place like Wilton’s, with those who are simply curious about music and then the real fans who will bring the enthusiasm when they hear their favourites,” added Pottier.

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