Tamil Maiyam, the creators of 'Thiruvasagam in Symphonic Oratorio by Ilayaraja', and 'Mozart Meets India', is launching an innovative music production 'Indian Christmas', a collection of Christmas songs in Tamil.

"The production promises to capture the spirit of Christmas in an eclectic mix of Carnatic and folk music embellished with traditional and rare instrumental music," said K Pandia Rajan, director, Tamil Maiyam, and managing director, Ma Foi Consultants Pvt Ltd.

'Indian Christmas' would re-live the globally known and evergreen Christmas carol songs, 'Silent Night', 'Jingle Bells', 'O Come all Ye Faithful', 'Joy to the World' and 'Angels' in Indian traditional strings, wind and percussion instruments. Select songs will be sung in Carnatic classical ragas. 'Silent Night' will be in raagam Neelambari and 'Jingle Bells' in Kathana Kuthukoolam. Instruments like the veena, sitar, nanoon, bamboo flute, mridangam, tabla and classical violin have been used. In doing so, both the Carnatic and Western harmony traditions have fiercely kept their discipline and identity, Pandia Rajan said.

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Eminent singers like Bombay Jayashree, Srinivas and Kritika have lent their voice for this atypical venture, said Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj, director, Tamil Maiyam.

"The project reflects the consistent pursuit of Tamil Maiyam to take the spirit of Indian music to a global audience," he added.

Pandia Rajan said, "Christmas is celebrated with a lot of fanfare in India and we are doubly happy to release this CD in the midst of the music season in the city. All these songs are globally popular and intrinsically entrenched in the Western cultural memory. We believe Indian classical music can be easily and effectively mediated to the Western world through these songs. In doing this, we have taken the cue from African music which entered American society through church music before becoming mainstream American and now, global. Above all, the project is aimed at promoting cross-cultural dialogue and understanding." 

"We hope to sell 300,000 CDs in December this year and over a million in the next year," he added.

The album will be launched on December 2 at a public function in Santhome Indoor Auditorium in Chennai. The music has been conducted by Nellai Jesuraj.

The music album comes in two CD packs - one containing Tamil songs and the other has the same songs in instrumental format. 

Tamizh Maiyam was founded in 2001 to promote cultural, artistic, literary dialogue between Tamil Nadu and the world and to preserve and promote Tamil traditional classical, subaltern and folk arts. The forum undertakes serious research on society and culture, organises regular seminars and symposia on culture, arts and society, and works with children to bridge the information, communication, and knowledge gaps which create the rural and urban divide.

R Rangaraj