The staff at Panchathan helped set up the movie screening room at AM Studios so that the staff, students and faculty could watch the Oscars on the big screen. Everyone showed up at 6:30 am to watch but I didn't make it there till 9 am because I was just exhausted from all of the rehearsals and planning and organizing going on at the same time for the MLK concert. I got there at the perfect time though because just as I arrived, Rahman won the first of his two oscars for Best Score! Shortly after the first award he won the second for Best Original Song from a motion picture. What a victory! Everyone at AM was jumping up and down, crying, shouting, screaming.... the students were hugging each other and one of them even fainted. I'm not kidding. Fainted.
Immediately after he won the second one everyone ran outside to shoot firecrackers and light crackers on the street. There was cracker residue all over the place and the media was eagerly waiting outside to get interviews and tape the reactions of the faculty and students. I saw a couple of videos online - some of them are pretty skeptical of the school in general but some of them were quite nice:The link feature never works when I use my mac. Copy and paste the link to watch the video: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=57552
The first video shows me looking really tired during our Jai Ho rehearsal. The second video shows all of the media waiting by the gate and then taking pictures of the French girls Claire and Vivienne who were standing with my student Ginu. And this one is funny because it shows me on the phone - and you can tell I'm saying "Bye Ma!"
The hysteria died down by Tuesday but Rahman was supposed to come early Wednesday morning and I knew it would be totally crazy again. Up and down the streets, people put up huge billboards with Rahman's face on it and the staff hung lights one after the other attached to florescent light sticks to make it look like the entire street was covered by a glowing tent. Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay up all night and attend the festivities but from what I heard, it was total madness. People were tripping and climbing over one another to get a look at Rahman when he entered the gates; the fans were euphoric and shouting Jai Ho!; the media was aggressively trying to get as many close-ups as possible, and although the police were there, they just joined in instead of trying to keep everyone calm! It was 6 am when everyone finally left Panchathan.
I haven't talked to Rahman yet, but I'm sure he's on Cloud 9.....and extremely exhausted.
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MLK Concert - The concert was pretty wild. The last two weeks have been filled with total chaos. Absolute. Total. Chaos. I have never been a part of something so disorganized, so last-minute, or anything so stressful. I ended up having to help plan events, follow up on schedules, confirm sound requirements, organize the transportation of instruments, organize meals for coffee/tea for the musicians etc. etc. etc. I could just go on and on. Anyone who has organized anything in India, I'm sure, can understand how crazy things can get here. I'm just going to assume it's the place and not the people. How hard is it to be organized? The sound check which was supposed to take an hour ended up taking 6 hours. Why? I have no idea. Not a clue. I understand going from 1 hour to 2. But 1 hour to 6??????? I wanted to rip my hair out by the end.
Somehow, everything managed to come together at the end. The concert started with Mr. Vairamuthu doing a dramatic reading of a Tamil poem he wrote for the occasion followed by the KM faculty playing the Bombay Theme. Then the students sang Jai Ho which was followed by Kamal Hassan reciting Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech "I Have a Dream." Kamal Hassan then introduced Martin Luther King III who talked for a little bit about what it means for him to be living in this time today; a time that his father could only dream of and is now a reality. I came in at this point and conducted the song Vaishnava Jana to with the choir and instrumentalists and then we finished the program with We Shall Overcome which ended up being a hit! The program was only an hour long and everyone afterwards really seemed to enjoy it. ARR's sister Rehana came up to me afterwards and said she's a music director as well (I had no idea) and she said she would love to have me sing for her sometime. She asked if I sing Jazz and I'm thinking, "well, actually not at all." But I said "Of course I do!!! I'm available any time!" So that's pretty cool.
I've also been hanging out a lot with ARR's manager Noell and his wife Nithya who are the coolest people I've met here so far. They're in their late 40's but they're young spirited, fresh and very level headed logical people. They're like a breath of fresh air. I hope I'm like that in 20 years. They came to the concert and said it was fantastic. I was very happy they enjoyed it.
All in all, it's been a crazy but fulfilling week. I haven't found anything about the concert online yet but when I do I'll post it. The concert was taped by NDTV and CNN but I don't think it was shown live. I don't know when it will be on tv but I'm keeping my eyes open.
This was my first time conducting in public - and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
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The night of Rahman's arrival in Chennai:
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