Kavita Krishnamurti and Dr. L Subramaniam on ‘Bharat Symphony’ song
The music industry is going all out not just to write, sing and perform during the lockdown but also create inspiring songs during these trying times. Reputed Tamil violinist and composer, Dr L Subramaniam recently created the single ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ that featured legendary singers. He also got Hema Malini and Pandit Birju Maharaj to perform in the video. The singers and performers completed shooting their parts with minimal technical support and created the video.
Talking about the project Dr L Subramaniam says, “The phrase ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ is from a beautiful Sanskrit verse from the Maha Upanishad. The meaning is basically that petty-minded people discriminate between a person who is a relative and a person who is not; but for the magnanimous ones, the whole world is one family. This attracted me so much that I used this particular verse in one of my compositions called Bharat Symphony, which I was commissioned to write by the city of Chicago.” The veteran composer’s project Bharat Symphony is basically the history of India in four movements including the Vedic period, Mughal period, British period, and Post-independence.
“For the fourth movement, I used this verse and recorded it with the London Symphony Orchestra and the London choir, with more than a hundred musicians being a part of it. During the recent lockdown, I thought I should take this separately and make a short video. My dream was to get some of the greatest singers to be part of it along with some of the greatest instrumentalists from around the world as well as a few important dancers. I couldn’t include everybody as I had limited time and limited space. I’m very thankful to artists like Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Yesudas, SP Balasubrahmanyam, Hema Malini Ji, Usha Uthup among a lot of other greats. I am not mentioning all the names because I want you all to watch the video . This dream has become a reality by God’s grace and I am very grateful to all the artists who made it a reality,” he shares.
Kavita Krishnamurti adds, “I’m delighted to have been involved with this project because I think ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ‘, is one of the great gifts from our Upanishads to the rest of the world. This was initially part of the fourth movement of Bharat Symphony and we decided to make this a special video involving many great artists from around the world. It is a great honour for me to sing these lines and it’s always a wonderful experience for me to work with my husband Dr. L Subramaniam’s composition. “