Young composer and keyboard player Colin Francis plans to bring out an album of songs that calls for ending violence against women.
The eight songs in the album in Malayalam have been written and set to tune by him. They are being sung by up-and-coming singers. The album is expected to be released by mid-2015.
“All through my career, I worked in projects where music has been used solely for entertainment. I wanted to do something different, something more than entertainment, and launched this project. The issue has haunted me after a 23-year-old woman commuter of the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train was pushed to her death, and the 2012 New Delhi gang rape case,” he says.
Some of the tracks are in ragas such as Sivaranjini that evoke pathos. “But the music is not entirely about sadness. One or two tracks are bright, signalling hope,” he says.
He is an alumnus of the Chetana Music Academy, run by the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. “I cleared the sixth grade piano examination. The training at Chetana made me a professional musician,” he says.
For a few years, he was a keyboard player with the Elite Orchestra, Coimbatore.
“It was one of the oldest bands in South India. C.T. David, founder of the band, hailed from Thrissur. He ran it for more than six decades. Some of the well-known musicians of the South, including composers Johnson and Ouseppachan, had played at the Elite Orchestra. I was lucky to have been part of this band,” he says.
He has composed music for several albums and TV programmes. He was co-music director for a Malayalam feature film.
He was a sound recordist in a Mumbai studio for three years and a piano tutor in a school in the Gulf.
He is the son of well-known pianist and keyboard player P. D. Francis.
“My father had worked with such greats as G. Devarajan, Bollywood drummer-cum-arranger, Babla, T.M. Soundararajan, Jayachandran, P. Susheela and S. Janaki. I remember singers such as Krishnachandran visiting our home. I grew up listening to him play the piano and accordion. This has been my main source of inspiration. I wanted to be like him,” he says.