NMC Listening Club: Param Vir 'Wheeling Past the Stars'

1st June 2021

Films NMC Recordings

Composer Param Vir is joined by consultant music advisor and ex-Artistic Director at Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Stephen Newbould to take a deep dive into Param's album Wheeling Past the Stars, the first album to be solely dedicated to Vir's music, released on NMC in May 2021. 

Recently described in The Guardian as "...an exemplar for life: many styles and traditions living freely, fruitfully, distinctly, in the mind of one person," Vir's work synthesises Indian classical music with western traditions inspired by his studies with Peter Maxwell Davies and Oliver Knussen. Our guests will take a deep dive into works on the album, including the title track of the release, which sets the poetry of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and explores the themes of love, politics, nature; Raga Fields, the product of months of close collaboration between Vir and Soumik Datta, the British Indian virtuoso sarod player; and Before Krishna which utilises serialist techniques and takes inspiration from the images around the birth of Krishna, the most popular and loved of the Hindu gods.

This livestream took place in June 2021 as part of our online series, NMC Listening Club. In each live broadcast we explore selected releases from our catalogue, in conversation with the composers and artists involved in their creation, plus further insight from specialists.

Check out more episodes of NMC Listening Club here.

Param Vir on NMC

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Param Vir Wheeling Past the Stars

Param Vir: Wheeling Past the Stars

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