Devotional or item number, Richa loves all

Kolkata: From religious numbers to item and folk tracks, playback singer Richa Sharma loves each and every genre. Richa, who had been part of films like ‘Zubeidaa’, ‘Saathiya’, ‘Kaante’ at the earlier phase of her career, said as a singer "I feel equally at ease to deliver different tracks, both sufi, folk, devotional as well as filmy numbers."

"Any type of song requires total dedication and devotion to your soul, to your spirit, to the God for that matter. If you do not get involved while singing any number, devotional or item songs, you cannot reach that level where you wish," Richa explained. The versatile singer, who had trained in classical music and later learnt ghazals and folk before moving to Mumbai in 1994, was talking to the media after launching Sitarscape, a lounge album by friend, renowned sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee, on Saturday night. Richa, whose Rom Rom Tera Naam Pukara Sajda (My Name Is Khan) was in the Top 10 lists of 2010 and fetched awards, said she was counting on audience feedback to her forthcoming releases of Shanghai (music by Vishal and Shekar), Trishna (Amit Trivedi) and Life in Taj Mahal (late Jagjit Singh). Richa said she would love to work with music directors like A R Rahman, Pritam, Vishal Sekhar and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. She recalls how she worked with Rahman till late hours for ‘The Rising’. "He is a workaholic who works till late hours and I will always be indebted to him," she said. "I would love to work with Purbayan Chatterjee, a very gifted classicist," she said. About Sitarscape, Purbayan said it was a medley of western music and contemporary Hindi tracks, Tagore songs and pure `ragas` by EMI Virgin Records, and blended the contemporary with classical with a base in sitar and aimed at initiating the young audience, who have shorter attention span and are more hooked to the hip-hop varieties. It has Hindi melodies like Kya Yehi Pyyar Hai, Sagar Kinare to the Tagore song Charono Dhorite, from the 40th symphony by Mozart to Bob Marley`s ‘No woman, no cry’. "It`s a soothing classical interpretation of these songs in the backdrop of a lounge feel, where relaxing experience is vital," he said. Purbayan said he and Richa were planning to collaborate to bring out an album which "will reflect our own musical odyssey." PTI