Official website of Anil Srinivasan - www.anilsrinivasan.com

The contemporary classical side of my life - The Madhirakshi Experience!

There are some days in our life which begin in such uneventful ways but end up being one of the most memorable ones.. A mundane start to the day that ends on a very high and sweet note. One such day was July 24 th 2006. I was fresh and awake at around 9.30 am when I got a call from my school Vidya Mandir . The teacher in charge of music asked me if I could go to a studio near my place called Surang at around 12 for a small recording. I obliged because that was for the golden jubilee celebrations of my dear school. And moreover the studio Surang was also close to my heart as I had done several sessions of recording over there and all the technicians were good friends of mine.
 
So there I went at five minutes past 12 and was greeted by my school senior and mridanga player Anirudh Raghupathi . I thought, “Wow  ... so he is going to be recording me!" But when I went inside the studio he introduced me to his classmate Anil Srinivasan from New York, famed classical pianist! That time I managed two wow’s in my mind . One was because he was from New York and the second was because he played on the Grand piano and not on the comfortable keyboard that people invariably play in studios to get done with, soon ..

Formal introductions were exchanged cordially and we sat down to have a cup of tea . That’s how a recording usually starts !! At that time, something struck my mind.. Is'nt this Anil, the boy who used to play the piano in school , during annual day functions , in cultural competitions when all of us would go berserk each time their band got on stage??? Past memories gushed in like a sudden but powerful wave!! I was thrilled to see my childhood icon after so many years. Moreover he was to produce the music for a play for which I was asked to lend my voice now. So the first raga he gave me was nasikabhooshani , a vivadi or a pretty dissonant oriented scale . That gave me a lot of idea about this guy’s musical preference. He was not going to settle for something mundane or time-tested!! I enjoyed the whole day’s recording with my seniors .

Later, the play was a big hit and the music was specially appreciated by one and all. It was Anil who struck upon this idea of collaborating two distinct but highly emotive classical arts - Carnatic and Western. The sound he created was fabulous to say the least . And I was being asked to sing just the way I wanted and the way I would generally perform on stage. My only concern was whether this would be liked by people. We recorded a few songs and took it to Charsur - a premiere music label. They loved it the very moment we played the rough track and said " We are releasing this !" All my apprehensions vanished!

So that was in September 2006 . “Madhirakshi” came into existence, following which we both released a sequel to it in November 2007 called “Maaya” again by Charsur . In between , the TVS family in Chennai , one of the most affluent families over here , expressed a lot of interest and involvement in promoting this new genre . I guess it was the first time a corporate house funded an audio CD!! The TVS family released “This and the other” - a two cd pack mainly for private circulation. More recently in 2008, the fourth album of ours came out – “The Blue Divine” . It was again supported by another big corporate name, Microsoft! This album enjoyed a lot of publicity and travelled with us to many places like the US, Singapore and Malaysia.
Hence, contemporary classical music is also enjoying an elevated position among music lovers today. After all, music in any form, is the language of the heart; it is the true experience of mankind!!

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