Kronos Quartet string ensemble goes Bollywood
By Paritosh Bansal
Mon Aug 15, 3:59 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Harrington of the Grammy-winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet says his group jumped at the chance to work with legendary Indian singer Asha Bhosle and take its eclectic chamber music to Bollywood.
In choosing songs for the group’s latest album, all of them composed by Bhosle’s late husband, R.D. Burman, Harrington said he selected those that appealed to his ear as a musician, with no understanding of their Hindi and Bengali lyrics.
It wasn’t until days before Kronos began recording last summer that Harrington realized the group had put together a collection of plaintive love songs, many of them lesser-known examples of Burman’s songcraft.
“I was reacting to the music totally as a listener and as a musician,” the violinist told Reuters in an interview. The song selection surprised Bhosle, too, but she felt they had rendered a strong sense of Burman as a composer, he said.
The result was “You’ve Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman’s Bollywood,” to be released on August 23 by the New York-based independent label Nonesuch Records.
Burman, who died in 1994, was Bollywood’s pre-eminent composer for two decades, creating more than 300 scores. His wife, Bhosle, sung most of his songs. She has more than 1,000 films and 13,000 tracks to her credit. India’s Mumbai-based film industry produces about 1,000 movies a year.
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Harrington said he has been a fan of Burman’s music since first hearing it 15 years ago.
“Over the years I have listened to many hundreds of songs by R.D. Burman,” he said. “The ones I liked the best were generally sung by Asha Bhosle.”
The San Francisco-based string quartet, known for blending classical music with jazz and pop influences, first recorded a Burman track, “Aaj Ki Raat” (“Tonight”), for its album “Kronos Caravan” in 2000. The idea of making an entire album of his music began to take hold around that time.
But it was only about two years ago that Harrington finally got a chance to speak with Bhosle.
She sings lead vocals on eight selections from “You’ve Stolen My Heart,” accompanied by Harrington and his three Kronos colleagues – fellow violinist John Sherba, Hank Dutt on viola and Jennifer Culp on cello.
The album also features Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain and Chinese musician Wu Man, both longtime collaborators with the quartet.
Bhosle has performed with Western musicians before. She formed a British-based pop group in 1984 with Erasure’s Vince Clark. She also has singles with artists such as Boy George and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe.
Kronos Quartet, founded in 1973, has a long history of experimentation and collaborations with composers and artists from around the world. Among its awards is a Grammy in 2004 for best chamber music performance.
But the Bollywood album finds the members pushing their limits as musicians. “Members of Kronos have never played so many different instruments on an album,” Harrington said.
It also is the first time the quartet has recorded with a lead singer. Bhosle is scheduled to join Kronos for concerts in the United States and London in September and October.