Music composer A R Rahman has brought together several maestros of the music industry to lend their voices to his latest album, Jana Gana Mana, his composition of Indias National Anthem.
Mumbai, Aug 14 : Music composer A R Rahman has brought together several maestros of the music industry to lend their voices to his latest album, Jana Gana Mana, his composition of India's National Anthem.
The album contains 35 different renditions of the original composition and features several stalwarts of Indian classical and popular music.
Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Lata Mangeshkar and S.P Balasubramanium are among the maestros to have performed for the album.
Rahman thanks them for coming together for his album. "I don't know whether anybody would get this opportunity to meet all of them for a single project without any hang-ups or without any ego clashes, which we normally get from big people. They were very sweet and unconditional in their support to this album," he said at a recent launch function.
Rahman said partly the concept of the album was to re-emboss fading impressions of India's freedom struggle.
"To remember what has gone through for getting the freedom, because if you see lots of countries are being destroyed now -- like Israel, Afghanistan and Palestine -- you can understand the value of independence and freedom, and we should value it even more and do as much as we can for it," said Rahman.
Part of the album is a video picturised on Indian troops stationed at the 21,000-feet Siachen glacier, the world's highest battle-field.
Rahman had cut the much-acclaimed album 'Vande Matram' in 1997 on India's golden jubilee celebrations of independence, with compositions inspired by India's national song by the same name.
ANI