http://www.screenindia.com/news/-I-am-very-strict-about-my-riyaaz--/390449/
*Music runs through her veins, as Runa Rizvi is the daughter of famed ghazal singer Rajkumar Rizvi and singer Indrani Rizvi. She has now entered the playback fray* Runa owes her new break in movies to A.R. Rahman, even though she is into music since she can remember. She even has a small jazz band. How do ghazal and jazz jell with each other? Runa says that both Indian classical and Western musical influences are very strong within her. "If my parents are into Indian music, I have also learnt jazz in New York for about five to six years. Back in India, I have gone also into thumri and Sufiana music and learnt voice modulation, diction training and workshops in classical music. As for my band, I sing the classical songs and they do their job!" she says with that ready smile. The singer belongs to the Kalavant Gharana and has been trained in classical, semi-classical and light classical music and is proficient at ghazals, thumri, folk, Punjabi and Sufi Music, having started performing at the tender age of six with her father and guru and training even earlier. But playback, says Runa, excites her. Classical training, she insists, is the base of everything in music but while in a classical performance, an artiste can even have an hour as creative space to improvise and show off his skills, a song in a movie is decidedly more challenging. "You have just four or five minutes," says Runa. "And in that short time you have to deliver anything from a simple melody to a club number with all the musical demands, expression, diction and emotions." She recalls her father's closeness to the late Madan Mohan and others and his singing Laila Majnu do badan ek jaan with Anuradha Paudwal and Preeti Sagar in the 1976 Laila Majnu. Runa made her playback duet four years ago in her friend Sandesh Shandilya's film Uff...Kya Jaadoo Mohabbat Hai! produced by Rajjat Barjatya for Rajshri Productions. "It was a beautiful duet named Shukriya with Kunal Ganjawala," says Runa. "I am grateful to the Barjatyas and Sandeshji for thinking of me." Runa has also sung Jeene ka and Har kafan under Amar Mohile's baton in Ram Gopal Varma's Contract. So how did Jaane tu mera kya hai come about with a combination as heady as A.R.Rahman with Aamir Khan and Abbas Tyrewala? Smiles the singer, "I was called to sing all the alaaps and vocals for (the background score of) Jagmohan Mundhra's Provoked - A True Story by Rahman-sir. He must have liked my voice and singing, for in fifteen days he called for me to record this song." The singer is delighted that after the film's success, the song has been finally included in the movie on popular demand. And how did Provoked... happen? "I know someone from the music industry whose judgement Rahman-sir trusts completely," she says mysteriously. The ghazal, says Runa, is in her blood. "My roots are so strong that experimenting with Western and fusion to appeal to a wider and younger audience will never compromise that foundation," she declares when I ask her whether this Western influence will gradually seep in and affect her basic skills." Western music has its classical and folk roots that are centuries old. So why is the term 'contemporary' synonymous with Western music and 'traditional' with Indian music? Smiles Runa, "Yes, I guess that is true of today. All I can say is that our music is very intense, but because the patience level of the audience is less now and the world is becoming smaller, the Western element has become important." Among her career highs, Runa has also had the opportunity to perform with and share the same stage with legends like Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jagjit Singh and Mehdi Hasan. On February 17, 2006, she was introduced as "The Young Maestro In Sufi Music" at the launch of the Indian Music Academy and performed in the presence of former president APJ Abdul Kalam. Runa has also performed and worked with artistes like Leslie Lewis, Ustad Sultan Khan, Abhijeet, Mahalakshmi and Jaspinder Nirula. Not only has she performed internationally in U.K., USA and Canada, but she also conducts regular workshops in Indian classical music with her father every year in New York, Chicago, Washington and Toronto. She has also done shows with Bappi Lahiri and sung on the album Catwalk with music by Bappa Lahiri. "I am very strict about my riyaaz," says the lady who has recorded a song for Bapi-Tutul in The Flag and with A.R.Rahman again for Shyam Benegal's Chamku Chameli and a film that for now cannot be mentioned. Pritam, Lalit Pandit and Salim-Sulaiman are the other composers with whom she is working, and there is also an album coming up. -- regards, Vithur
