Saturday, April 25, 2009

The fusion master

Ershad Kamol

•   Part 1
•   Part 2

Shayan Chowdhury Arnob, who goes by his nickname, is a popular name of the current breed of talented musicians. Over the years this composer and singer has achieved success for his distinctive style. He got nationwide recognition for rendering songs in the debut album of popular band Bangla. However, Arnob earned a name after the release of solos and mixed albums such as Chai Na Bhabish and Hok Kolorab.Simultaneously his compositions of the jingles for commercials and TV serials took him to the limelight.

Besides composing some original popular songs Arnob has successfully rearranged timeless songs, basically baul songs, a new sound. Doing that he has fused baul songs with western blues and classical, using both eastern instruments such as esraj as well as western instruments like guitar and keyboards in his compositions. The use of esraj is one of the unique features of his compositions.

He learnt to play esraj while a student of graphic design at Shantiniketan, India. In fact, his music sense developed at the institution where Arnob had the opportunity to share his views on music with the Bauls living at Shantiniketan.

Though Arnob received appreciation for jingles, he is least interested in continuing this.

In the interview with The Daily Star Online Arnob talks about his recent successful UK and North America tour in some big cities such as in Chicago, Washington DC, New York City, Toronto, and London.

Arnob says that the songs performed in the live concerts by him and his friends will be released soon in Bangladesh under the Arnob and Friends banner. The musician hopes that the album will be a hit, since the audience will get the flavour of live concert.