Multi-award-winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman's concert at the National Stadium will be the biggest concert in Singapore by an Indian artiste.
SINGAPORE – When music maestro A.R. Rahman performs at the National Stadium on Aug 31, it will be the biggest concert in Singapore staged by an Indian artiste.
The venue is one of Singapore’s largest for concerts, and organisers Unusual Entertainment and Maestro Productions Global are expecting an audience of 25,000 for the prolific artiste, whose works span more than 160 film soundtracks and albums. Singapore has always been special to the 57-year-old Oscar-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winning musician, composer and singer. It was the first country that he travelled to out of India, and it was where he bought some of his earliest equipment.
“It was around 1985 or 1986,” Rahman recalls in a recent Zoom interview from India with The Straits Times. “Singapore was an easily accessible city for us in Tamil Nadu. Looking at Singapore from the flight inside the airplane, it’s still so clear in my memory.
” A keen follower of the latest in music technology, he bought music-making equipment such as sequencers and midi recorders from Singapore music stores Swee Lee and City Music. Later in his three-decade-long career, he would also work with talent from Singapore, including rapper-songwriter duo Lady Kash and Krissy on songs such as Wanna Mash Up? from the 2014 Hindi film Highway. He also composed the track Raga’s Dance for Sing.