Bombay Jayashri needs no introduction. The popular playback singer and Carnatic classical musician has time and again captured the audience with her melodious voice. This gifted singer will be in the city soon, for a concert titled Listening to Life - the Journey of a Raga. City-based artiste M D Pallavi will join the troupe by singing a few Kannada songs.
When City Express interacted with Bombay Jayashri, she spoke about her new project, ‘Listening to Life - the journey of a Raga’, her passion towards music and her future collaborations.
According to Jayashri, Listening to Life - Journey of Raga is a bouquet of music from several genres. She said, “Besides me, the team also includes Bangalore’s own M D Pallavi, giving the audience some of the most memorable Kannada songs. I am amazed at how vast the Kannada light classical and light music scene is. And I feel very privileged to have a living legend like M S Sathyu design the sets and lights for the concert. We have extraordinary instrumentalists in the ensemble playing several well-known tunes, including folk tunes from around the world.”
She added, “In Listening to Life, my attempt is to become a rasika of music, a passionate listener, while performing for the audience. The team conceptualised the programme, while Sai Shravanam pulled together the concept and flow, Embar Kannan pitched in with creative inputs, and Navin Iyer and Navneeth Sundar brought in their own thoughts based on their experiences.
This has been a very rare kind of teamwork and we thoroughly enjoyed putting the concert together.” Bombay Jayashri has been very successful in holding the audience’s attention with her soothing and mesmerising voice. Her performances across the country and the world has left the audience craving for more. But the artiste still feels that she is just a drop in an ocean when compared to the legends of yesteryears.
Jayashri, disciple of such greats like T R Balamani, G N Dandapani Iyer and violin maestro Lalgudi G Jayaraman performed her first concert in 1982. The artiste said, “I have been blessed with extraordinary gurus right from the time I started to learn music. I am a passionate listener and I have tried to imbibe every nuance that was taught and heard from the legendary musicians.”
Besides being a traditional Carnatic classical musician, the melody queen has also collaborated with musicians like Subha Mudgal, Leela Samson, Priya Govind and T M Krishna. She has also collaborated with musicians from other countries like Hisham Abbas of Egypt and Thione Seck of Senegal. Jayashri is a very sought after playback singer as well. She has won the Filmfare award for ‘Vaseegara’ from Minnale. The artiste has also composed music for actor Revathi’s tele-film Verukku Neer. Speaking about her experiences while working on film projects, she said, “It’s the learning from the legends that stands out, whether it is Ilayaraja, Jagjit Singh, Ouseoppachan, S P Venkatesh or Louis Banks.”
Appreciating the music connoisseurs in Bangalore, she said that city audience is very eager to hear new aspects of music. She signs off saying, “The warmth that I can instantaneously feel when I sing here, is very special.”