I met French medieval singer Dominique Vellard in the mid-90s. I have spoken about our work together in one of my vlog posts which you can watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuSs_fbc4hs
Since then, we performed together at over 30 concerts in Europe, India, Morocco and Malaysia where we would combine Carnatic music with Gregorian chants to create our unique melodies. In 2002, we found another member to join our collaboration – Noureddine Tahiri. Moroccan Sufi vocalist Noureddine Tahiri brought Arab-Andalusian tradition into our equation adding yet another layer of divinity to the music Dominique and I had been creating. As we tried to combine our distinctly different traditions and cultures together, we also strived to ensure that each one of us maintained our individuality and stayed true to our traditions.
Every time we performed on stage, I noticed that we all transcended ourselves as we focussed solely on finding inner peace through music and in doing so, we seemed to effortlessly break all barriers of cultural differences. To our joy, this unique brand of music that we created found widespread appeal and went on to be appreciated by both classical as well as contemporary music lovers around the world.
The desire for love, inner peace, and oneness with a higher power is universal and that is probably what resonated through our attempts to bring together three seemingly different genres of music.
Our 2012 concert album called Trialogue is one of my most cherished experiences. It beautifully blends my South Indian Carnatic music, Dominique’s medieval liturgical and Tahiri’s Moroccan devotional music. It was recorded in Bourgogne, France in June 2011. For all of us, this concert was an extremely spiritual experience and one we will hold close to our hearts for the rest of our lives.
You can listen to the songs from the album Trialogue here: http://www.arunasairam.org/album-details.asp?alid=48
