ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

Calcutta, Jan 15, 2012 (Washington Bangla Radio) "Dashakarma Bhandar" is a new audio CD released under the label of Purple Music in Kolkata - A WBRi partner whose albums are available for worldwide via our Digital Download service.

The album claims to be the first "breakthrough" album that breaks inter-genre barriers in Bengali music. Noted film-maker Rituporno Ghosh (interview) welcomes the amalgamation of the traditional and contemporary in the album.

There are 13 songs in the album:

·         Two songs by eminent signer Raghav Chatterji (interview)
·         One Atul Prasad arranged as per today’s taste by Mr. Tamal Chakraborty who is a leading arranger in Tollywood Bengali films with Srijit Mukherji's Autograph, Bollywood Hindi film Tum Mile and many others to his credit
·         One Shyama Sangeet.
·         Two Tagore Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
·         Four original Bengali modern songs.
·         One Folk song
·         One Instrumental
·         And one 80’s disco style remix.Tracklist

Read all about the album and listen to the Bengali songs free online on WBRi.

By Soumitra Talukdar

Editor's Note: You may also remember our first interview with Joy Sarkar around the time of the release of Riingo's Bengali film "Jodi Ekdin" featuring music directed by him available here. We also recently published a musical interview with Lopamudra Mitra where Joy also appears extempore and impromptu posted here.

Calcutta, Aug 25, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio) We continue our series of musical interview with Soumitra Talukdar chatting up singer-composer and Music Director Joy Sarkar at his residence in an informal setting. Joy talks about his career in music and breaks spontaneously into singing, strumming his guitar, over the course of this video interview !

Joy says, “My father Sudhin Sarkar is a singer and my mother, Kalyani Sarkar never forgot to hum a tune when she made our breakfast. They are the reason why I am doing, what I am doing today. I probably started recognising notes before I learned Bangla letters. It was like colour… the world seemed to be made up of little musical notes that wafted in the air. Music was not just a part of the world that I acknowledged to be mine… it was the world!"

Washington DC, Aug 13, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio) Salil Chowdhury composed his first protest song as early as in 1943. A few years later he joined IPTA (Indian Peoples Theater Association) and composed numerous songs and along with the IPTA comrades he took his songs to the masses. They travelled through the villages and the cities and his songs became the voice of the masses.

These songs of protest with lyrics and music composed by Salil Chowdhury were very powerful and stimulating indeed and made people aware of the rampant social injustice and oppression that surrounded them. These mass songs became a part of the independence movement He called these songs the 'Songs of consciousness and awakening'

After extensive research for the last 12 years, Gautam Choudhury, the creator of the website www.salilda.com has published this unique collection of 12 of these rare mass songs by Salil Chowdhury. Washington Bangla Radio is privileged to bring you this album in digital download format world-wide.

These 12 songs were composed between 1944 and 1951 and refer to major political events that took place during that period. Reference to most of these songs is available in many IPTA and other publications and quite a few of the senior IPTA members who are still alive can vividly remember these songs. Without their help this recording would not be possible. 

The principle singers include the members of Bharatiya Gananatya Sangha (Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association) of Kolkata with the students of Rabindra Bharati University providing the harmony. Some of the best musicians from Kolkata participated in this recording, which took nearly two years to complete.

The music is arranged by Goutam Ghosh, head of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University who knew Salil Chowdhury quite well and has an excellent understanding of his musical style.

• Click here to listen to free previews online and download Chetonar Gaan - Songs of Conciousness in full audio hi-def MP3 format »

Washington DC, July 29, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio) In this musical video interview hosted by Soumitra Talukdar, acclaimed Bengali singer Lopamudra Mitra chats about her background, experience and musical career interspersed with songs in her golden voice. She is also joined by her husband Joy Sarkar. We are confident you will find the impromptu performances by two of the brightest stars of Bengali music mesmerizing.

Washington DC, July 14, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio) The prodigal Bengali and Bollywood (and Tamil and other regional languages!) singer Anweshaa Dutta Gupta started taking singing lessons from her mother Mita Duttagupta when very young, and subsequently commenced her training in North Indian Classical vocals when she was barely four years old from her Guruji Shri Jayanta Sarkar, who she still is a student of.

In this informal chat with Arijit Chakraborty, Anwesha talks about her grooming in the world of music, and especially about her latest album "RIMJHIM" which is an international production of Aninda Bose (interview) recorded in a studio in New Jersey.

Rimjhim - Anwesha-Debanjalee MP3 Download: To listen to producer and co-composer Aninda Bose and download "Rimjhim" feat. Anwesha & Debanjalee in MP3 Bengali audio songs format, check out our exclusive interview-feature on Aninda Bose.

Anwesha expresses her gratitude to Debanjalee Banerjee, the composer of the title song "Rimjhim", which she describes as a very sweet and romantic song. Thanks to Aninda's efforts, arrangements for recording and production were pretty complete before Anwesha arrived in New Jersey to sing her songs in the album. Her experience of working with the world-class musician and sound engineer (ex-bassist with Bon Jovi) Dan Skye was, not surprisingly, excellent. When Aninda sent her the finished tracks later, Anwesha was very impressed and thinks Dan did a great job in mixing. She says the recording experience in a studio in New Jersey was distinctly different from that in India - and the studio itself (Skylab Recording Studios) is in a quiet secluded "forest" as she describes.

Winner of numerous awards, Anwesha touches upon the importance of television reality competition shows and talent hunt programming as a platform that provides an opportunity to showcase the abilities of aspiring young and upcoming artists on a national (and sometimes international) level. Anwesha points out that this audio interview is another event that is in a way rooted to the exposure she has had in TV reality shows. She specifically mentions "Chhote Ustaad" as a talent-hunt show that pretty much launched her career - she immediately started getting offers to perform playback film songs for Bengali and Hindi films and eventually Tamil and songs in other Indian regional languages.

Anwesha considers her recent live appearance in Nashville, Tennessee as one of her most memorable performances. Other favorites of hers include her song "Megher Palok Chander Nolok" from director Amit Sen's (interview) Bengali film "Natobar Not Out" for which she recently won a Telecine Best Playback Singer Female award (she also won the Best Title Song award in the same ceremony for ETV Bangla show "Rojgere Ginni"). The lyrics of "Megher Palok" are written by Kamaleshwar Mukherjee (interview) who is the director of Uro Chithi, and music composition is by Debojyoti Mishra (interview). Anwesha's experience in recording Tamil film songs in studios in Chennai is also very thrilling - listen to her describe that experience in her own words!

Anwesha currently has her plate full - she is singing a great number of songs for South Indian and Hindi movies, including the upcoming Bollywood film "Luv U Soniyo" in which we will see the Indian cinema debut of Tanuj Virani, son of veteran Bollywood actress Rati Agnihotri.

Listen to the full interview with Anwesha audio exclusively on Washington Bangla Radio.