The early music choir Orlando Consort collaborates with virtuosos Jonathan Mayer (sitar), Shahid Khan (voice) & Kuljit Bhamra (tabla) to create exciting new works and arrangements which fuse early music and Indian classical music.
After settling in Goa in 1510, Portuguese missionaries set out to win the hearts, minds and souls of the local population through the power of music. They established an education programme that featured tuition in plainsong, polyphony and a variety of western instruments. Yet the process was one of interaction, not subjection. Traditional Indian instruments were made welcome in church and local tunes were borrowed and re-set with Catholic texts. The pieces on this CD reflect this melting pot of interaction.
Although there are no precise documents of the music that was played and sung during this collaborative period, it has provided a wonderfully liberating excuse for the artists to fantasise and indulge their imaginations. It is also a chance to demonstrate that links between cultures need not exist solely at specific moments in history, but that they can also reach out across the centuries. This ambitious project dispels the myth that fusion doesn't work!
The Mantra Project was premiered in 2009 at the Cheltenham Festival and at Lichfield, Salisbury and the Brighton Early Music Festival. The glowing reviews it was: “a fascinating and uplifting concert” (Salisbury) and “a real jewel” (Brighton).
