Bickram Ghosh: Must celebrate our incredible tradition of instrumental music

With Glorious India Bickram Ghosh brings the finest musical talentmdashincluding Grammy winner Rakesh Chaurasia Purbayan Chatterjee and Kumaresh among othersmdashunder one roof In this interview he discusses making Indian instruments the stars of his piece and taking the album to the GrammysEdited excerpts of the interviewWhy did you decide to bring these celebrated artistes together for this albumIf you look at the history of fusion music in India you will find that it traces back to Indian classical music Itrsquos always been Indian classical musicians who have ventured into the fusion music arena As one of the early birds in this space I wanted the finest instrumentalists of our country on board These are the people who have played globally and are the leading players in the classical circuit We have musicians from the north and the south of India Some of the best percussionists are also on boardThe world is now looking towards India for many reasons including our accomplishments in sports and cinema Glorious India is a reflection of what India is todaymdashit is a country that is not just basking in the glory of its past which is hugely regarded for its spirituality and music but also for what we have to offer in the futureWe need to celebrate our incredible tradition of instrumental music At concerts in the west yoursquoll have 80 musicians on stage But here in India even if you have one player each on the sitar sarod and tabla you can listen to them for three hours There is a lot of literature and beautiful sound textures in India Therersquos the veena bamboo flute sitari and our unbelievable percussions Why should we not bring it together to make an album that is groovy but also brims with excellenceCan you talk about the process of shooting the videos with these artistesItrsquos incredibly difficult to mime Indian classical music You can lipsync to a song but to do so for Indian classical music is tough because while playing the musicians are constantly improvising There are harkats that they introduce during the recording which are then retained So to record the video they need to track and remember those improvisations Every little inflection and each twitch of the neck have to be captured We goofed up a lot and often we had to do 20 takes But it was worth itGiven your decadesworth of experience people may assume directing other composers may be easy Certainly there may be challenges to understanding how to enhance each artistersquos strength in the studioAfter playing on stage for so many years we no longer worry about goofing up on stage Now we look forward to go on stage crack jokes and try to catch the other musician in a weak moment so that we can playfully bounce something off them hoping they miss it But they donrsquot because they are brilliant tooCan you elaborate on the decision to take this album to the GrammysI am a voting member of the Grammys and have played on four Grammynominated albums As we began to work on this album I felt we had made a commendable piece At the Grammys there has been a lot of interest in India and Africa So we have a good chance of winning For me to send it to the Grammys is easy because as a voting member I can do that Thereafter itrsquos in the hands of the public