16/04/2010

"This is India! The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition" Mark Twain.

In this Friday Night Special - From Hollywood to Bollywood - which was recorded at LSO St Luke's in April, Hardeep Singh Kohli presents a selection of musical pictures of India - from classical composers like Rimsky Korsakov (Song Of India) and Elgar (Crown Of India Suite), to the big Hollywood film scores for Gandhi (George Fenton) and Passage to India (Maurice Jarre). We also recall the films of Sabu including Miklos Rozsa's 1942 score to The Jungle Book.

Robert Ziegler conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra, who are joined by some traditional Bollywood singers and the award-winning composer and percussionist Kuljit Bhamra. East meets West when Kuljit and his ensemble join the 60 piece BBC Concert Orchestra for some of Bollywood's greatest hits including songs from Bombay Dreams and Jai Ho from "Slumdog Millionaire.

During the concert interval BBC Asian Network presenters Pablo and Raj talk to composer A.R. Rahmin.