“Khatija faced a lot of backlash for her personal choice of wearing the burqa, and she’s handled it all. She performed ‘Farishton’, a Sufi song in ‘Raga Pahadi’, with Firdaus for the Children’s Day event at the Expo. His daughter, Khatija, a 25-year-old singer who runs his charitable foundation, has been at the forefront of social media battles for her Islamic dress code. Women fighting for their rights to express themselves is a topic close to Rahman’s heart. We’re just scratching the surface of possibility right now.” And those prospects are endless, as this has been set up as a legacy project of the Dubai Expo, with recordings, tours and collaborations, once the pandemic settles. The orchestra itself is very progressive, and are an example of tolerance and acceptance as they all come from different cultures, and they’re playing together towards a higher ideal. “There are so many narratives about women in the Middle East, and Firdaus helps break the shackles and all the doubts about playing music on stage. A Hindustani classical ensemble and Western classical soprano singers served up a complex tarana (a style of composition invented by Amir Khusrau featuring Persian and Arabic phonemes) with the orchestra as the show’s grand finale. Rahman joined them on stage with an original fusion composition, one of many he’s composing for them, adding ambient soundscapes to the texture. Performing on Arabic and Indian instruments such as oud, ney, qanun and sitar, they blended the Western classical style with the improvisation common in Indian forms. High levels of perfection and unison were showcased in these performances at the Dubai Expo the opening ceremony concert was spectacular, with laser lights and the orchestra dressed to match. Dubai is leading the way for many nations in a positive way, in terms of how they approach art, thus rewriting the history of the region in recent times.” There are so many narratives about women in the Middle East, and Firdaus helps break the shackles and all the doubts about playing music on stage I called one of my associates from Berklee College of Music, Mayssa Karaa, as artistic director and we started finding talent from Syria, Lebanon, Oman, Iraq, Croatia, India, Armenia… It was a rigorous process to find musicians who could switch genres. Rahman explains how the project took shape: “It was the highly-acclaimed film director of Elizabeth, Shekhar Kapur, with whom I worked on Bombay Dreams, who introduced me to Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimi and the first thing she asked was whether we could form an all-female orchestra. Women from this UAE region have often been misconstrued in popular culture, so the visual of an all-female orchestra, with a woman conductor, Yasmina Sabba, is a rare sight. “We have our own state-of-the-art studio, which allows the orchestra to work digitally, plug into film studios, and collaborate with musicians globally.” “The aspiration is to become one of the most cutting edge orchestras,” Rahman enthuses. Playing a mix of Rahman’s own music with well-known Western classical pieces, women from 23 nationalities, aged 15 to 55, took to the stage. The live event was also streamed via YouTube globally. Their inaugural concert, in October 2021 at the postponed Dubai Expo 2020, saw them share the bill with Andrea Bocelli, Ellie Goulding, Hussain Al Jassmi and Lang Lang. Rahman’s main project, the Firdaus Orchestra, began their concert journey with a bang. Mentoring an all-woman orchestra called Firdaus (meaning ‘Paradise’ in Arabic) in Dubai has taken up a huge chunk of his time recently, and he’s also joined hands with British Tamil rapper MIA and Canadian start-up Maajja to uplift independent musicians in an ever-changing music business landscape. But Rahman’s larger legacy in music goes far beyond his compositions. Three decades of composing music for Indian cinema, two Grammys, two Oscars, a BAFTA and an honorary fellow of the Trinity College of Music: AR Rahman has become a household name.
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