The Indian American Soundtrack

A few years ago, I wondered what it would be like to visualize ten decades of Bollywood music in ten minutes. The result was a collaborative performance with Summermusik (Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra) where I scored the ‘Chitrahaar Overture’ featuring over 60 melodies all the way from the 1930s through the 2020s.

Cincinnati is often referred to as ‘The City that Sings’. It was here that the well-known musical spirit of ‘We shall overcome’ soared during the Civil Rights era, a tune that transcended cultures and resonated across India in the form of ‘Honge Kamyab’, a cross-cultural echo that we, the Indian community celebrated with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra at the historic Cincinnati Music Hall in 2014. It was in Cincinnati that the first Indian American community choir came into being; a choir that competed and placed in the World Choir Games – an International Choral festival that was held in Cincinnati in 2012 (the only such occurrence in the United States).

When approached by Summermusik with a new commission early this year to create a work celebrating the Indian American experience at the concert ‘The Soundtrack of America’ celebrating 250 years of the United States, it clearly felt like an opportunity to narrate the story of our community…

The Indian American story is one of resilience and transformation. 5.6 million of us of Indian origin constitute less than 2% of the population of the United States. Today, we excel as global leaders in technology, healthcare, and politics, while navigating the complexities of a composite identity. Indian Americans also enrich the American ethos, blending ancient wisdom with a dynamic, modern identity. 

What is our story and how do we narrate it using the medium of orchestral music?

‘The Indian American Soundtrack’ attempts to do just that. This 12-minute-long work is a seeping evocative tone poem structured organically into eight sections to give vibrant musical expression to a historic journey, celebrating a community’s saga “from sea to shining sea.”

Following a celebratory opening, the music captures the challenging early years of migration before entering the transformative Civil Rights era, paying homage to the powerful cross-cultural resonance of “We Shall Overcome.”  It then translates the academic and entrepreneurial energy of the diaspora into dynamic orchestral textures, shifts into a meditative reflection on Yoga, celebrates vibrant popular culture, and concludes with a tribute to philanthropy and the spirit of community.

The score touches upon several Indian ragas such as Durga, Bhupali, Yaman, Shanmukhapriya, Rasikapriya to communicate the story while translating Indian melodies into the Western orchestral idiom. The final movement, “The Art of Giving,” is set entirely in the Raga Desh and builds toward a thrilling climax evoking deep cultural nostalgia for the diaspora while forging a modern, unified orchestral identity.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval will narrate the piece. Visuals will support the storyline.

It has been a reflective journey writing this 12-minute-long score, as I remember my days as a student during the Reagan era in Cincinnati where the Indian American presence was sparse and when one had to even explain that India was different from Indiana! That was the era of movies such as ‘Passage to India’. It was also the era when Ravi Shankar’s symphonic works played in New York.

A lot has shifted in the past 40 years. From an era where one watched Indian movies on rented VCRs and VHS tapes to one that premieres the latest Indian movies in small towns in the United States while selling samosas in movie halls to Indian Americans featured in headlines in tech, politics and every possible field to Indian American sponsored free-clinics in rural Ohio—there is quite a story.

For decades, the immigrant narrative has been documented in text, film, and statistics, but the specific emotional resonance of the Indian American diaspora is yet to be told in orchestral music. It is a tremendous opportunity to share our story as a wholesome artistic narrative in the halls of High Art in Downtown Cincinnati where once Mark Twain walked its streets is probably the most fitting space to feature its premiere.

I am grateful to Indiaspora for having featured me in past events and for supporting this performance. I look forward to sharing this work with one and all.