Another Diamond in the Crown of A.R.Rahman. Review on Choreography - Vanessa Mae

For Those Who Don?t Know About

Vanessa Mae basically from Singapore started playing violin at the age of 10 in Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. She is one of the youngest violin players to release her own western classical album at the age of 11. But however she became popular at the age of 14 in 1995 after releasing her experimental and most controversial techno ? acoustic fusion album called ?The Violin Player?. She fused the western classical music with jazz and rock stuffs, which raised all controversies, but on the other side she won accolades for her new innovation in music.

After that she came up with five more albums of same kind titled ?Storm?, ?Classical Album 1?, ?Classical Album 2?, ?The Original Four Seasons? and ?Subject to Change?. She holds over 40 international platinum awards and her worldwide sales have surpassed 8 million. People use to call her kind of music as ?Violin Pop?, very unique isn?t it?

About Vanessa Mae ? Choreography

This is the latest album of Vanessa Mae first to be released in the label of Sony Classical. The album takes you a journey through the sounds of the dance rhythms of various parts of the globe from Arabian belly dance, tribal dance of Africa, bolero, European minuet, English ballad, Argentinean Tango and also Indian classical. The internationally acclaimed composers from various traditions like Oscar winner Vangelis (''Chariots of Fire''), Irish composer/producer Bill Whelan (''River dance'') and Tolga Kashif (''The Queen Symphony'') and our own Indian A.R.Rahman have composed the tracks.

With a grand backing of Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vanessa Mae does magic with her violin elaborating the complexities of the notes of each genre of music, which is running around the composition written by the legends of each genre. The traditional instruments are also perfectly mixed to create the ambience and the mood of that part of the world in the sound. The album has totally 10 tracks.

1 Sabre Dance - A. Katchkaturian, arr. Tolga Kashif

The first track of the album is most exciting track of the album. A slow solo violin piece starts the track and the traditional Arabic percussions take over. The tune has an unusual note in the start. The rocking percussions pop up the track. The orchestration and Solo violin together takes diverse paths, you never know what leads to what and altogether the track comes as a cracker song of the album. This track is my pick of the album.

2 Roxanne's Veil ? Vangelis

This track is a slow, soft, haunting and a seductive melody. The basic tune is great. Initially only the solo violin plays the tune with mild beats and some fast fingerings on piano adds beauty to the song. Later it sounds great when the choir and the orchestra join the solo violin. Try to listen it when you are alone with your beloved. It will take you to the world of pure love and romance.

3 Bolero for violin and Orchestra - Walter Taieb

This track sounds Chinese all the way because of the percussions sounding like taiko drums and wind instrument used also sounds Chinese. Even the notes played by Vanessa in violin also has Chinese flavor. The orchestration is again great for this song but I don?t know why they used a military band sound in the background for the whole song but nonetheless a great track. I read it is arrangement of a famous ?Bolero? theme but I haven?t heard it before.

4 Tango De Los Excilados - Walter Taieb

This is Argentinean tango dance rhythm. It is also orchestrated in the same way as the previous one. While the orchestration playing the basic tune, Vanessa?s violin goes beyond the tune and elaborates lot more complexity in it. It is this solo violin which makes it completely different from the otherwise similar orchestration as the previous one.

5 The Havana Slide - Jon Cohen

This is a joyful Caribbean dance rhythm. This is the only track which has no orchestration in the background. All the traditional instruments take the lead to create the mood with Vanessa?s violin playing around following the piano played by the composer himself. The traditional percussions in the middle part with complex arrangements.

6 Emerald Tiger - Bill Whelan

This track is the second best in the album. Again it resonates the tribal dance rhythm but in a totally different way and with lot of grandeur in orchestration. I read that this song describes as the tribal men make themselves ready for hunting and gather afterwards in celebrating their successful hunt. The basic tune is awesome and it perfectly sounds the terror in a dense forest. The vocal singing ?yahadhundhom? is the background is dreadful. The orchestration is out of the world for this track. The fast running violins of Vanessa along with the orchestration makes you feel like running in a dense forest chasing something.

7 Tribal Gathering - Walter Taieb & Vanessa-Mae

Another tribal track composed by Walter Taieb again. But this time it is quite different and has a serious note in the tune. She plays very complex notes in this track. The trumpet takes the lead among the instruments in the orchestra. A high temp tribal dance num,ber.

8 Raga's Dance - A.R Rahman

The tune is 100% Indian classical to be more specific Carnatic. The usage of Ganjira, morsing, tanpura, veena, mirthangam make it a track with complete Indianness. The track starts with sriram?s vocal singing ?Tha theem gina thom? with perfectly creating the mood of our land in the lead accompanied by tabla beats in the background. The main tune is awesome with classical notes. This is the track in which Vanessa amazed me the most. She sounds like a well trained violin player in Indian classical music. In the middle the female vocal sing complex swaras with lot of ghamukkas and Vanessa repeats the same in her violin without missing a note.

It is like a competition between ARR and Vanessa because ARR has written notes with complexity increasing gradually to test her skills but she Vanessa plays it effortlessly with sheer perfection. ARR has composed a separate tune for the orchestra which plays it often behind the main tune played by Vanessa. A great song rich with Indian flavor and will definitely make others to think great about Indian music. This track is definitely another diamond in the crown of ARR in the international scenario.

A snippet from her interview to classic FM about her album

?My favourite track is by A.R.Rahman. You can hear it at the classical BRIT on 26 May. Despite being the oriental myself, I?ve never really performed oriental music. Rahman brings an authenticity to his music that we?d never have found in a western composer?

9 Moroccan Roll - Kad Achouri & jon Cohen

The tune of this track is catchy again with Arabic flavor. It is very peppy with heavy usage of percussions. Vanessa plays parallel in two tracks in this song. A very small track, short and sweet.

10 Handel's Minuet - arr. Vanessa-Mae

This is a fitting finale. A slow, soft track with nice orchestration.

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