thiruvasakam in symphony

My tribute to Raaja!!! kettachu, amazing, fantastic!!!

Dear Shri. Ilayaraaja,
"Thiruvasagam by Ilayaraaja" held me in a state of
enchantment , what a magic spell!!! Shri.Ilayaraaja
becomes one with the music!! The Great composer
Ilayaraaja indeed has given a world class
music!!!(ofcourse romba naalavey koduthundudhaan
yerukka!! from 'chinna kannan azhaikiran...' to
Guru,Avatharam ... the list is endless!!!). Singer
Ilayaraaja's singing induces a great emotive feeling.
The artists zest is in volumes!!! Thanks Raaja!!
Love, Vinu.

Dear all - let me put things straight - I wanted just logged on to the one of many classical discussion fora on the web, and gave an intro to TiS and someone responded - after my rejoinder to his response, the same someone is now intrigued and is beginning to listen to IR's other samples

That was not a review he gave, only a response after listening to the one minute (or lesser than that) clips from the Raajangahm site

The whole attempt was to see how ears tuned to hard core WCM would react to this unique album!

For reviews, attempts are being made to contact big time reviewers

Pls read "I wanted just logged on to" as "I just logged on to"

Here is the responder's reply to my rejoinder:

--------------------------------------------------------------
And I do remember that the Indian-style singing seemed sensitively done, with subtle restraint. Give me an idea, please, of about how much, percentage-wise, the Thiruvasakam CD is composed of that Western Broadway singing in English. If it's just a moment or two, I can probably handle it. If it's substantial, I'll probably pass. And yes, I can go back and listen to more of the composer's music.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

SO you see, NEVER-SAY-DIE and you will get your share of the PIE!

Guys - I have a very important suggestion to make - let us make a list of major important Symphony Orchestras and see which of these are located in your place of stay - then can we see if a copy of TiS is personally handed over to the music director/conductor of each of these orchestras by the concerned TFM-DFer ?

Thanks

tmrrmt

i have been thinking about it. Let me first see if we can go to these places and atleast give the CD to them (not to the office folks but to composer). There are plenty of musical shows (speically symphony) happening in Lincon center here.

I also send some samples to few oratorio societies based on their request. I hope they get back to us with some review.

Apart from us few more people has to get involved
1. wellgate to start the nomination process for grammy or other awards and present themselves in trade shows
2. Tamilmaiyam - they can also do 1
3. IR - he need to be involved and he sure can reach lot of these folks easily than us.

Kupps and TISK - relax - no hard feelings at all! I was only sharing this news with everyone - cheers! btw, that responded is bidding for TiS on ebay - if not, he is going to order it from TiS website! now, that is something to cheer about

cheers!

Found this link about TIS on FRONTLINE:

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2215...9004110200.htm

Krishnan

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/7/18/central/11500293&sec=central


Hundreds get their hands on collector’s item

By BAVANI M
Photo by SAM THAM


HUNDREDS of people turned up at Wisma Peladang in Petaling Jaya yesterday for the launch of an audio CD collection that featured symphonic renditions of the ancient Thiruvasakam, a collection of Tamil devotional hymns dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva.

Renowned Indian composer Dr Ilaiyaraaja composed and orchestrated the songs.

Called Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja: A Classical Crossover, the collection features the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, comprising 260 musicians and 130 singers.

The visitors were mostly die-hard fans of Dr Ilaiyaraaja and came to get copies of the collector’s item.

Usha Rani said the collection, which comes with a audio CD, VCD and a booklet with lyrics that were hand written by Ilaiyaraaja, was “a must-have” for all fans of the composer.

“It’s exciting, interesting and unique,” she said. “Everyone must own a copy if it.”

A spokesman from Agi Music, the CD’s distributor in Malaysia and Singapore, said musicians from three countries were involved in the collection’s making.

“Apart from Ilaiyaraaja, Hungarian conductor Lazslo Kovacs, New York-based songwriter Stephen Schwartz and sound engineer Richard King were involved in the project.”

Ilaiyaaraja has scored music for over 4,000 film songs in a career that spans three decades.

Thiruvasakam was written by a ninth century Tamil poet Saint Manickavasakar.

G. U. Hope, an Englishman, translated it into English in the 19th century.

Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja is a unique attempt to present select verses from this work in the oratorio musical form, synthesising ideas from both the Indian and Western classical traditions.

The collection is available at all major Indian music stores and is retailing at RM35 a copy.

CDs sold during the launch will be channelled towards religious, social and humanitarian services carried out by the Malaysia Hindu Sangam.

For details, call 03-4041 4667/4669.

Review of TbI in Indiaglitz...
http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/t...view/3004.html

Shankar and others the review in Indiaglitz is the first genuinely balanced review written on this album - hats off to Indiaglitz!!

TIS will be played in Bridgewater Temple (NJ, USA) on Monday evening (thats the "timeslot" they have for Lord shiva!!!!).

One of the priest who listened to it says "Its a must to have for temples". He rated this product very high from "religious" perspective and he was very impressed with the first song.

Efforts are on the way to play TIS in temples around NY/NJ area.

Also, I will post the review by Ashok Shukla, sound engineer. Ashok Shukla was a sound engineer for lot of well known movies and he worked in few Tamil movies as well. His first tamil movie was "Oomai Vizhigal".

You can find his work at

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1107742/

Mr Ashok Shukla is a great fan of IR. He said he is going to review the album only from orchestraization (spelled right?) perspective. After 1st week when I talk to him to get the review, he said, he couldnt pass the first two songs, and he is hearing them again and again. He never had time to go beyond the first two songs. Today he said he is almost completed and will give me some review.

I will also post the review by a Western classical (violin/vocal) music teacher in a week. She love indian music and for that reason ended up marrying an indian (poor girl, this guy has no ears! I mean music ears!) whom she met in India during her trip to Chennai to learn carnatic music.

'Shankar's and NJV's' posts are real sweet on this Monday Morning!

I am saying at least a 100 times 'Thank You, Lord' for giving us the opportunity to associate with this project and the count is already 8 sofar[counting those Paypal Orders and these posts!!]for today!

Friends, as said earlier, we have more work to do. All those who have bought this great album, please get one more for your friend or your family or encourage them to purchase one to finally heave a sigh of relief!

Thank you! [9!]
YIA!

TIS now available at India Mart, Irving, Texas (972) 438 6865 .

TIS will be available (in couple of days) at Bombay Video (Devon st) Chicago from this week.(773) 743-5575

Fans in respective area, please buy TIS from them so that they can order more.

TISK Sir & All

Our next target should be to sell TIS for retailers. Even if you bought TIS already, please go to your video store and ask for TIS. Once they see the demand, they will try to buy atleast few copies.

Thanks
NJV

HERE IS SOMETHING FOR YOUR PERUSAL AND PASS-OVER TO YOUR FRIENDS.
THIS CAN BE HAD FROM OUR WWW.TIS-USA.COM SITE.
PL. PASS IT ON.
THANKS.
YIA!
:: Volunteer distributors
City Volunteer Contact information
Arizona Isaiosai
Austin Bala Beddhannan
Austin Sai Sivakumar
Bay Area Padmakumar Nagarajan (650) 577 8473
Bay Area Anand Alaghu
Bay Area Mani Manivannan 510-796-2433
Boston Venkat Bala
Boston Odi Odaiyappan
Canada Dushyanth Gnanapragasam (416) 995 2984
Chicago Ram Raghuraman
Connecticut Socrates 860-559-0377
Dallas Mukund Parthasarathy
Detroit Arunkumar Mohunraj
Houston Sathish Kumar 281-240-9461
Los Angeles Ramesh Ganesan
Maryland Kolandavel Ramasamy 410-531-6390
New Jersey Balaji Krishnamoorthy DVDunlimitedonline.com
New Jersey Jeeva Sivaraman 732-274-3436
Raleigh/Durham Tower Restaurant
Raleigh/Durham Triangle Indian Market
San Diego Anush Anand
Seattle Sujatha Rajarajan
St. Louis Porchezhiyan 314-878-5832

:: Other online options
DVDunlimitedonline.com
E-bay

Contact details for the above may be had from our site www.tis-usa.com at the 'order' page.
Thanks.

walrus,

which symphonix? The RPO one? I have no idea how it "looks", also even if I had I cannot say whether its good/bad.

Anyway i assume your question is about TiS.

"Astreriks" my answer. Definitely i feel TiS unsuits me, i mean, my name :)

Though I have added a full-stop it is upto you to assume a colon after the word "answer" and a comma after "Astreriks" ;)

Review by IndiaGlitz ... reflects most of my thoughts on listening to TBI. I am not a good writer ... I was happy to see some of my similar thoughts are neatly presented... like the 4th song which has very good malayalam flavour with pure tamil lyrics suported by both Indian and Western instruments.
... Sai

I could feel that everybody agrees to the fact that TBI is first of its kind. But, there seems to be couple of common thoughts expressed by folks (in different blogs, websites):

Lot of people seem to have problem with IR singing most of the songs. One observation was that the instruments used & arrangements weren't grand enough as one would expect from a Symphony.

1) "IR is off-key at few places" - AGREED.
"His voice seems to be old" - AGREED.
"He is not able to scale enough with his voice" - AGREED.

How does that matter in THIS album?
Having agreed to all of the 3 above, I love to disagree completely with the argument that "Unni, Hariharan" would have done a better job.

I have often wondered why the pointer on the AC control unit points at 60 F looking at it from my bed or from my desk. Then, when I went near it...I found that it was because there is something called "Parallax Error"

Let me explain what you might already know: "Error that can be introduced when not reading an instrument directly from its front, due to the separation of the indicator and the scale being read."

The same is happening to so many people.. Voice has various attributes. Scaling is one of them. He might have not outscored in Scaling. Come on!! Have you ever questioned why "Pithukuli Murugadas"'s voice not soft?

Whenever I hear to "Murugadas"'s voice... I think of "Chinna Kannan" dancing in front of him...and he melts while praising Him.

IR has melted and has succeeded in melting thousands of souls with his divine voice...
If you see "off key" here.. you are having "Parallax Error" (not in vision) but in music...
So, my prescription to you is try to come to the RIGHT Plane to join the journey..

What matters the MOST in this album are:

a) Delivering the DIVINITY to thousands of SOULS.
b) Making the younger generation look back at Thiruvasagam, a great epic.
c) Delivering in musical form without distorting its beauty with RIGHT Pronounciation.

Did IR succeed? A Big YES!!

His objective succeeded!!

2) He is not proving his musical competencies here..He has done that already to the world.
This album is to deliver Thiruvasagam in musical form to make younger generation aware!!
He is not trying another GURU here...

As a software developer, I might know 100 technologies, components. But, I apply only those based on the problem I attack, client I deal & budget that I have.
Quite as simple as that..

Rest my case.

People in this forum would be more than happy if all of us discuss about TBI alone here.

Topics not related to TBI could well be posted in a different thread.I certainly don't enjoy reading some unrelated stuff here and am sure that this is the case with most of the regulars here.

Once again, I plead with everyone to leave Anand at peace and give us a break with this.
More than Anand, this is distracting more-- these continued postings on his write-up and this constant dwelling on it.
After much labour, TbI has hit the public and let us spend our time on this please!
Thanks.
YIA!

May I request the Admins to delete any further postings on the Outlook topic? Thanks.

Quote:

---

Once again, I plead with everyone to leave Anand at peace and give us a break with this.

---

We take the liberty of changing it as "rest Anand in peace" and continue with our beating him to death :)

TISK ippa enna seiveenga, ippa enna seiveenga :)

TISK, neenga romba straight forward'A irukkeenga:-) indha mAdhiri controversy ellAm oru style of marketing theriyumO?:-)) NOM!

BTW, are we out of the woods? (Means, has Thamizh Maiyam and associates sold enough to breathe out of loans?)

http://aruls.blogspot.com/2005/07/blog-post_18.html

app_engine,

Didn't you see my earlier posting today on the same subject you had asked me [still not out of woods!]
Hence the plea to get one more person to buy the Cd!
Thanks.
YIA!

Hence the plea to get one more person to buy the Cd!
I mean by each one who has already bought!!

Dear friends,

Is there any plans to release TIO in DVD format with 5.1 recording ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TISK

Once again, I plead with everyone to leave Anand at peace and give us a break with this.
More than Anand, this is distracting more-- these continued postings on his write-up and this constant dwelling on it.
After much labour, TbI has hit the public and let us spend our time on this please!
Thanks.
YIA!

---

Discussion on outlook article moved to,

http://forumhub.mayyam.com/hub/viewtopic.php?t=4174

You may continue discussions there. Further digressions will be deleted.

Hi rr!
By moving and creating a separate thread you have finally managed to create some legitimacy to the views of a journalist who looks at the entire world with a red prism. These views would have been better left unresponded. If you feel that this is a digression, then please delete it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jaiganes

Hi rr!
By moving and creating a separate thread you have finally managed to create some legitimacy to the views of a journalist who looks at the entire world with a red prism. These views would have been better left unresponded. If you feel that this is a digression, then please delete it.

---

FYI,
IR's life began througha RED prism. A prism is a prism, whether its red or white or whatever. As long as the Reds dont complaint about you looking through another prism, you can leave the Reds alone.
Sorry for the digression.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by yeskarthi

Dear friends,

Is there any plans to release TIO in DVD format with 5.1 recording ?

---

TISK

This is not a complaint - but neverthless, there are a lot of people under the impression that the DVD is going to be released and the DVD is to contain the songs. I tried telling them that the DVD even if released might not contain songs but just video recordings of how TBI was done.

Could you please let us know when if at all the DVD is going to be released and what it would contain?

jeera

yeskarthi question is valid. yeskarthi wanted to know if TIS AUDIO is going to come in Dolby 5.1 format.

yeskarthi

I dont think DVD audio is popular in indian music industry. So dont expect the same. The only DVD audio that I have seen so far are for Boys and Manmadhan.

Thanks

The much talked about DVD is not yet out anywhere!
IIR is still making some corrections here and there and hence the DVD hasn't gone into final production as of today.
Fr.Jegath is hopeful of getting it underway by today and an official announcement will be made at our site in the next 24 hrs.
The proposed DVD will have a few bits of the songs in the background and will mainly be covering the Hungary recording and a few interviews by the participating artists including IIR and Fr.Jegath. I have only seen a rough version of it and I understand more corrections have been made since then and I am not in a position to comment on the final edition.
Pl. bear with us and we will announce once we hear something positive soon.
I am also trying to get the dance number played out by the Stella Mary's students during the Launch in Chennai as a bonus and let me hope that it materializes.
Please get that one extra original CD/DVD for yourselves to see some cheers on us!
YIA!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jaiganes

Hi rr!
By moving and creating a separate thread you have finally managed to create some legitimacy to the views of a journalist who looks at the entire world with a red prism. .

---

No it doesn't make it legitimate. If it did, how would you interpret so many like viyay,Naaz,etc who have responded (and still doing). The idea was to redirect ppl, who you know would be posting even if the digressions were deleted, and keep this topic sane. No other intentions. Ok, let's stop this here.

Guys.

Finally got the CD and listened to it last night. yet to go past the first 2 tracks.. ( just started on the third - Ko thumbi by Bavatharini )

I have just one word to describe the first 2 tracks - Ecstatic.

Knowing Sivapuranam verses very well( atleast the sequence ) , i noticed that IR had juggled the verses in the second track very much. I do not want to start another controversy here, but wanted to know if it is a common practice for thiruvaasagam verses to be sung in any order.. I did not see any distortion in meaning as each line is sort of indepenedent of the others, i guess.. Can somone comment on it..

The Polla Vinayen track is really heavy duty.. Especially towards the end - with the choir/chorus weaving in and out. man that was cool !.

The booklet calls one portion of the track as a Cappella . can anyone throw more light on this one.. I guess it is a category where there is just a solo voice and no music at all..not sure.. Is it a commonplace in a Oratario.?

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/musical_forms.html


I will write again after I get thru all the tracks..but yet to come out of the shock of Polla Vinayen.. It gave me goosebumps at a couple of places..( Eesandi potri, Enthai adi potri , neyathe nindra nimalanadi potri is one place and Maasatra Sothi Malarsudare is another ..- the chorus is amazing. )

cry_sandiego,

Your guess on A cappella partly right. "A cappella" is vocal/choral music without any supporting instrumental music. It need not necessarily be a song with a solo voice. A song which uses multiple voices (like a choir) without any musical instruments is also an A cappella.

Some more blogs...
http://brangan.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=1167321
http://ramanick.blogspot.com/2005/07....html#comments
(the second one is supposedly by an ARR admirer)

thanks Arun..

MSK

Your attention PLEASE !!

This is what I found in one site (http://www.dhool.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7498) about TiS piracy.. Could we do something about it???

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:45 pm Post subject: re: SOTD #650: puRRil vaazh from Thiruvasagam

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings to everyone:
I am writing this from Toronto. For the last few days I was trying to get the "original" Thiruvasagam CD from the local stores here, sad to say none of them have it. BUT they are selling the pirated copies for CAD$ 5. I am very sad and preety upset. I mentioned my dissapointments with the shop keepers. Obvisouly they care less. not one store..Toronto's 3 popular Tamil Video/Audio stores doing the same thing.
My Question is? Is this project legaly registered? Copyright !!!
If so can someone do something about such activities?
It is very sad, People have gone through so much to get this projet done selling their properties, putting forward all their life time savings...
I am determined to get the original and original only. I don't know why they did not market the CD here.
I have no problem mentioning the names of the Stores.
As Tamils we should appriciate the boldness and courage of people like IR and all those involved in bringing up Thiruvasagam in simple form for us.