The interview which appears below was originally published in Nasreen Munni Kabir's book, A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
NMK: Did you enjoy your time in London?
ARR: It was exciting because there is so much music that you can hear in London. My passion for Western classical was revived and it helped me a great deal when I was scoring the Chinese film Warriors of Heaven and Earth and the stage production of The Lord of the Rings.
NMK: You have worked with the best directors in India. How did He Ping who made Warriors of Heaven and Earth in 2004 hear about you?
ARR: He loved the Lagaan music. Peter Gelb, the former head of Sony Classical, recommended me to He Ping. Peter Gelb had been closely involved in many soundtracks, including Titanic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Red Violin, and Hero.
I met He Ping at his office in Hong Kong. It was the first time that I had to discuss a movie through a translator. [smiles] Working on a Chinese film was an enriching experience.
NMK: You were also co-composer on producer Kevin Wallace’s hugely ambitious stage version of The Lord of the Rings. It was a very expensive production, budgeted at some twenty-five million Canadian dollars. It first opened in Toronto in 2006 and then in London in 2007.
What kind of sound did Kevin Wallace and director Matthew Warchus want?
ARR: Musical theatre in the West has been reinventing itself for some time. Productions like The Lion King and Bombay Dreams have in their own way contributed to introducing fresh ideas through different storylines and the use of world music.
The Lord of the Rings took this a step further. I worked with the six-member Finnish folk music band Värttinä, and we combined world music with a classical score. The way music is used on the stage is obviously different from how it is used in cinema, but working methods are more or less the same.
The musical supervisor of Bombay Dreams, Chris Nightingale became the bridge between Värttinä and me. Värttinä are incredible in how they compose background music, and express and perform a song.
The stage production of The Lord of the Rings was a big challenge and a very different experience from Bombay Dreams. Producer Kevin Wallace’s vision was unlike the way musicals are usually conceived, and before director Matthew Warchus had approved my first piece of music, I was very scared. I didn’t know if I could do it. I was still relatively new to musical theatre, but it became easier once we started working.
Working on that stage production was like journeying into another world. We were really surprised when extraordinary things happened. It was more of a search than arriving at a destination.
NMK: Are you now as comfortable working in Hollywood as you are in Indian cinema? Must you spend a lot of time there?
ARR: I’m comfortable in both environments. When I was scoring Couples Retreat, there was no point in trying to work from India when the whole production team was in Los Angeles.
I have a home in Los Angeles as I often wake up at 3 in the morning and start working. So I needed a place to stay and work.
I’ve met extraordinary people in the West whose priorities may be different from ours, but they are wonderful people. You can’t paint everyone with the same brush. I’ve experienced the best of both worlds.
NMK: You were also part of “The Alchemy Festival,” a concert held at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 7 April 2010 where the orchestra played your background scores, including the music of the stage production of The Lord of the Rings.
It was an unusual concert for your fans who expected to hear your popular film songs. Yet the concert that was conducted by Matt Dunkley, seemed to hold the audience’s attention. There was pin drop silence.
ARR: I thought people would be restless and noisy. I was proud of the audience. Great effort went into organising that concert. It was a big step. I wanted to try a new concept. Encouraging new events is very important. If you have a new idea, the usual reaction is that we won’t get the money for it. It won’t happen. Very few people have the confidence to say: “Yes, we’ll do it.” I respect people who think like that.
NMK: I was watching you at the rehearsals, and didn’t know whether you could tell if any instrument in that large orchestra was out of tune.
ARR: Yes, I could.
NMK: If someone is talking softly in the corner of the room, can you pick up what they’re saying?
ARR: I hear what I want to. [both laugh]
NMK: Do you think a musician finds it easy to learn another language?
ARR: I think you learn if you want to learn. I studied Arabic from 1994 to ’97. I used to spend an hour with my Arabic teacher every evening from 5 to 6 learning the Holy Quran. I can’t speak Arabic but can read the holy verses. I would disappear from the studio no matter which film director I was working with, and go and study. Of course no one knew why I would vanish
