Praised as "strikingly original" (NY Times) and a "new voice from whom we will surely be hearing more" (LA Times), Kamala Sankaram has received commissions from the Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the PROTOTYPE Festival, Opera Memphis, Opera Ithaca, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, among others. Awards, grants and residencies include: the Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, NY IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, the Civilians, HERE, the MacDowell Colony and the Watermill Center. Dr. Sankaram holds a Ph.D. from the New School and is currently on the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase, New York (www.kamalasankaram.com). For her band, Bombay Rickey, visit www.bombayrickey.com.
The composer says, "As both an Indian-origin composer of Western classical music and a lover of all things Bollywood, I was delighted to be asked to create a new orchestral work inspired by the classic song "Shola jo bhadke." The song itself is the spark that ignites the orchestra piece: all of the melodic and rhythmic motifs in the orchestra are transcribed from the original song and recontextualized. As the piece progresses, the Western orchestral music is transformed until it fully embodies the spirit and energy of classic Bollywood. I hope that by featuring the smaller, hidden motifs in the song, the audience will find a renewed way of listening to an old favourite."
