Composer Vishal Chandrasekhar: Sita Ramam pushed my boundaries further, Hanu Raghavapudi is a master storyteller

Music composer Vishal Chandrasekhar has been a frequent collaborator with director Vishal Chandrasekhar - right from Krishnagadi Veera Prema Gadha to Padi Padi Leche Manasu and Sita Ramam. Keeping the commercial results of the film aside, music was the backbone of both Krishnagadi..and Padi Padi Leche Manasu. The duo looks set to recreate their magic yet another time with Sita Ramam now.

“Sita Ramam is a beautiful story and there are excellent situations that brought out the best in me. Good music is born out of strong creative inspiration and this film pushed my boundaries further. Hanu Raghavapudi is a master storyteller and his script deserves all the applause the music has been getting,” Vishal shared in a media interaction today.

“I had the pleasure of being in the company of Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry when we were composing Kaanunna Kalyanam in the studio. We spoke on a lot of things, from the rhyme schemes to word play and nuances unique to Tamil and Telugu languages. He also discussed the trick behind presenting the same tune to audiences in different languages,” he said.

Adding that she shares a good rapport with lyricists Krishna Kanth, Ananth Sriram, Vishal stated a lot of effort has gone into understand the musical tastes of audiences across Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam audiences for Sita Ramam. “Inthandham is slightly different in the Tamil version. Roping in SP Charan was the producer’s choice. It’s great to have a singer whose voice resembles SPB’s”

The chorus sung by a group of children Inthandham has been garnering a lot of praise too. “The idea had come from Hanu Raghavapudi. When he heard the song first, he suggested to rope in a few young voices for it. It shaped up very well eventually.” Vishal mentioned that Sita Ramam offered him a lot of scope with the background music, more so because it alternates between two timelines.

“Over 140 artistes from Germany, US, France and other countries worked on the background score. There are a lot of classical influences in Sita Ramam and we experimented with many ragas. A lot of hardwork went into it. I, my better half and my team worked round the clock to accomplish the result we hoped for. My wife recorded voices from Chennai and Kochi while I monitored them here.”

Vishal adopted an organic approach to come up with an enriching score without the use of synthesisers and modern-day instruments. “I researched a lot about the music produced during the 60s and 80s in Telugu cinema. I work hard on understanding the meaning of every word in the lyric and the expression of a writer.” There are nine songs in Sita Ramam on the whole, of which 3 are out.

“Melodies are my strength. Oh Rama Hey Sita is my personal favourite of the three songs. However, there’s another song in the second half that I have a liking to. It’s a number that’ll haunt you,” he mentioned. Vishal cites musician Ranjit Barot as his inspiration and said he was enamoured his work for Prabhudeva’s VIP in particular. He hopes to compose for a Mysskin film soon and is now in talks to work on a Madhavan starrer.