Passion for Fusion
while listening to the album "Impressions" , i could not avoid pondering over the recent explosion of fusion albums ventured by carnatic musicians. the hindustani instrumentalists had taken the shastreeya sangeet abroad to the Western listerners long back and also performed jugalbandhis with Western performers. though carnatic music had been known to the Western world through individual performances by vocalists and instrumentalists, a joint performance or collaboration by carnatic musicians with western performers was not much in the game apart from one or two like L.Subramaniam. then came 'Sangamam' of maharajapuram santhanam and m.s.viswanathan. the songs rendered were untainted carnatic krithis on an apt background of MSV's orchestral talents. needless to say, we have not heard anything like this before. when the fusion comes from two rich musical minds, the outcome is nothing but a masterpiece. slowly and unconsiously, a craze for fusion music has taken roo