KOCHI: For young indie musicians Goutham Vincent and Amritha Rajan, being one of the top 10 contestants to be chosen by music maestro A R Rahman for his online music cover contest #99SongsCoverStar challenge was a dream come true.Alappuzha-native Goutham has been exploring his music career as a composer for more than five years. As per the contest, the artists had to record and post a cover of their favourite soundtrack by A R Rahman. “We chose one of the popular tracks, Seemanthapoo from the list which has cover versions by other artists.
It was very challenging for me to perform the orchestration of the cover sung by Gayathri Rajeev, who brought me the idea to participate. We were particular that our music cover should be receptive and soothing when the real owner of the song listens to it,” says Goutham who is a sound engineering graduate and a student of Henry Kuruvila, the former music programmer of A R Rahman.
For another winner of the contest, young music prodigy Amritha Rajan, the fete was a learning curve to shape her music career. The singer based in Perumbavoor is also the vocalist of Kerala-based music band Groove. Amritha also performed a cover version of the song, Seemanthapoo at the contest.
“Due to pandemic we all were secluded inside our homes and were inactive. But the contest helped me refresh myself and even get a chance to talk to Rahman. He talked about songs that we rendered for the contest which was more like an honour. He even congratulated me for making music my profession,” she says.