Rahman to sizzle Oscar Night

A. R. Rahman has received an invitation he would remember for a very long time to come. The music wizard will be opening Oscar Night on February 22 with a song that features in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ ‘Jai Ho’. Singer Sukhwinder Singh would accompany Rahman on stage.

Latest reports reveal that Rahman is altering the song a bit so that it will be in perfect synchronization with the live orchestration that will accompany his song. The musician as already reported has been nominated in three categories and is considered a front runner to win the highly coveted Oscar. ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘O Saaya’ have been nominated in the original song category and Rahman has been nominated in the Best original Score category.

Noted lyricist Gulzar is also expected to be present with his team when the famous ceremony unfolds.

Rahman being invited to perform is widely considered as a giant leap by an Indian musician especially because the performance is expected to enthrall global audiences. Indian music would most certainly be on the most desirable list among worldwide music lovers.

“A.R. Rahman knows nothing of ghazals”

Lashing out strongly on the present generation of music directors and filmmaker, ghazal singer Jagjit Singh asks, “What does AR Rahman know about ghazals? He will never use a ghazal in his films. All they do is pick up tunes from the West.” He rues that there is no poetry in the lyrics these days and language used is tapori, which is a mix of Hindi and English.

The singer says that the audience for the ghazal form of music has only increased over the last few years. He added that he tries to improvise on this ghazals and this brings a lot of audience to his concerts. Interestingly, the singer only performs for a cause nowadays.