After a mandatory selfie at the airport, the UK-based Classics of Broadway team comprising musicans Colin Francis, Mike Palmer, Marie Adele, Jenni Tarr besides dancers Abi Turner, Ellie Johnson and Kaye Etherington, is enroute to their stay at the Secunderabad Club. As they travel, they realise Hyderabad’s a city with a newer dimension (in comparison to their past visit) with more flyovers, though they admit the hospitality is still as good as it can get. A spicy lunch greets them; the Hyderabadi biryani and palak paneer are the only dishes they manage to remember with the names. The group gets ready for the rehearsal of their show ‘Nights of Musicals’ to take music lovers through a nostalgic ride of the evergreen music produced between 60s and the 80s from Dream Girls to Phantom of the Opera to Jesus Christ Superstar to West Side Story.
Excerpts from an interview prior to an event organised by Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation in association with the Secunderabad Club.
What do you feel is more special about the music produced during the 60s and the 70s?
It’s more melodic, more lyrical. They were songs that had stories. The music of late has only been repetition of phrases. It’s also about the generation who lived through the 60s and the 70s, they remember the music so well. The songs were something you identified with. It’s important to give it a contemporary twist so that the younger generation appreciates it as well.
How does your location and your audience impact the way you perform?
The music changes only slightly from location to location. In a place like London, we aren’t rigid with our ideas, say beyond musicals, we’d also infuse a tinge of rock and roll. We might open up to music from the 40s and 50s too. It helps for the fact that we’ve come to India before and know what the audience here likes, the musicals, the big numbers and the ballets. Our last visit familiarised us with their tastes and we’ve altered our playlists and sections accordingly for our performance this time. The emotion embedded in a song makes music universal. It boils down to how it’s sung, how the piece is put together and it will resonate with crowds.
How does a musician/performer beat monotony in their lives?
It’s important to repackage the way you perform, add new sections over time. Even as we perform the same number, we give a different spin to it, it might be the orchestration or the singing or another aspect. Our work needs freshness, the little changes and differences are necessary so that the audience too doesn’t feel the performance is ‘staged’. Ultimately our performances are rehearsed, what helps on stage is how a performer brings forward his/her own personality, intentionally or unintentionally.
How do you guys stick together, with or without music?
We’re very careful of whom we bring forward to the group, it’s obviously dependent on talent and what they could do on stage, another matter of equal significance is his/her personality off stage. We’re a family, we blend and yet respect our differences. Music isn’t our profession, it’s our passion, a way of life. We’re always at it sub-consciously, searching for inspirations around us, from a costume to the last song that was played on the radio.
What’s the immediate reaction to a mistake or a false note that you strike on stage?
We never know about it until it happens, but it happens very frequently (laughs). It’s not about being perfect everytime, it’s about letting the audience believe it is. No matter what goes wrong, you make it feel like it’s supposed to happen.
On the importance of art and artists to be associated with social causes.
We run charity tours to do our bit in supporting causes around cancer. As the audiences have fun, it’s also good for them to realise the noble intent behind the music too. Across the different walks of life we specialise in, we realise art is a therapy. It gives hope!
A dream accomplished
Renowned breast surgeon Dr P Raghuram on organising ‘Night of Musicals’:
“Since childhood, I have always loved to listen and dance to music. As a doctor who deals with counselling patients affected with breast cancer on a daily basis, listening to music in the evening helps me unwind and gets me recharged for the next day. My kind of music is old fashioned – Bollywood and English songs from yesteryear and instrumental. I used to regularly attend the annual Glastonbury Festival. Having spent a decade in the UK (1997 – 2007), I returned to India precisely ten years ago in October 2007 with a mission to transform my dreams to reality. Music and meditation help in abundance whilst dealing with cancer, both during and after completing the treatment. On completing ten years of my return and also for music is dear to my heart, I decided to bring one of the best groups from West end London to Hyderabad to mark the theme ‘United Kingdom to India – a dream accomplished’. “
