We have thousands of human-written stories, discussions, interviews and reviews from today through the past 20+ years. Find them here:

Search the site Search

Bollywood Meets Hollywood in 'Symphony Masala' with Orchestra Santa Monica

January 20, 2026, 5:03 PM · When I agreed several months ago to play an "all-Bollywood" concert on January 10 with Orchestra Santa Monica, a couple of things did not occur to me.

First, I'd never played any Bollywood music, ever. Could that be right, in all the hundreds of pops concerts I've ever played? Apparently so.

Also, aside from "Jai Ho" from the 2008 film "Slumdog Millionaire," I couldn't name even one song, or movie, from the wildly popular Indian Hindi-language movie genre known as "Bollywood."

This became even more apparent when I downloaded the music for the show, which was called Symphony Masala. Indeed, I recognized just one of the 15 songs (again, "Jai Ho"!).

Our music director, the New York-born, Western-trained Indian-American conductor Roger Kalia, must have anticipated that we musicians would not be entirely familiar with the music, as he sent us a good deal of listening material prior to the first rehearsal.

A month before the concert we received recordings of MIDI backing tracks of the orchestra music: our parts as read by a good computer synthesizer. This was the "Symphony" part of "Symphony Masala." Since we would have two rehearsals, one the day before and one the day-of, I definitely wanted to get this music in my head. So I listened dutifully during my winter break, as my husband and I drove across the mountains and deserts of the Western U.S. on a road trip to see our daughter.

It was pleasant background to this scenery, but I wasn't particularly impressed. In all honesty, it lacked life, it lacked spice. Maybe because it these were MIDI-tracks, not played by humans. Also, it just seemed to be...missing something.

Then, about a week before the concert, Roger sent us more: a playlist of music videos of all the songs we'd be playing. This was the music in its original Bollywood setting, with singing and Indian instrumentation.

The effect was quite the opposite of those dull MIDI files - these videos were filled with exuberance, wailing, wayward emotion, cheeky flirtation and belly dancing - lots of belly dancing! This was the "Masala" part, the spicy stuff.

How were these elements going to come together? Roger gave us a few hints in the message he sent to the orchestra:

"One of the most beautiful aspects of this project is how these traditions interact," he wrote.

"Symphony Masala" was the result of a collaboration between Roger and acclaimed Bollywood singer Anuradha "Juju" Palakurthi, who came up with the idea during the pandemic. They debuted the project in 2023 with Symphony New Hampshire, followed by two performances this past October with the Chicago Sinfonietta.

"Since its inception, the goal has always been to celebrate Bollywood music through a fully symphonic lens — honoring its roots while reimagining it for a Western orchestra," Roger wrote. "In Symphony Masala, the vocals preserve the delicate microtonal inflections that are central to Bollywood singing, while the orchestra provides the structure and discipline of the Western classical tradition. What you’ll hear is a seamless interplay — an authentic vocal style woven naturally into a symphonic framework."

Aha, there would be singers. This was starting to look very interesting. And another interesting twist: we learned that this concert was so popular that the tickets had sold out three days after they became available to the public. This does not happen with many symphony concerts!

So once I returned from my holiday travels, I started reading through the music. It ran pretty smoothly - but for the occasional rhythmic stumbling block. Take this innocuous looking passage from "Chaiyya Chaiyya":

Should that not be sight-readable? It wasn't, for me. It was just enough out of my regular musical vocabulary to stop my progress and force me to work it out like a math problem. Here's another example, from "Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho":

Looks simple, but it's a little bit of a head-scratcher, the first time you bump into it on the page. No doubt these are quite common Indian musical decorations that are simply not ingrained in my musical habits or thought patterns. But once I could sing them a few times, they came easily to my fingers, and I found my brain wanted to keep repeating them - like taking more bites of a yummy new kind of food.

The rehearsals were quite fun - though a bit loud, with amplification and the addition of some percussion tracks. There were two singers - Anuradha "Juju" Palakurthi herself as well as Charenjeet "Cj" Virdi. And there were dancers! For several numbers we were joined by the Svetlana Tulasi Dance Company.

By concert time I felt like I had 15 new "favorite Bollywood songs," and I looked forward to performing them all! Nothing was too hard, yet there were also enough interesting twists and turns to keep my interest throughout the concert.

Our concert was not recorded, but I want to show you an example of one of the arrangements from "Symphony Masala." Here is "Chaiyya Chaiyya" from the 1998 Bollywood film Dil Se. We performed it as instrumental music with no vocals, but I love this version, performed with Budapest Symphony and featuring Anuradha “Juju” Palakurthi with a different vocal partner, the singer and arranger Mithilesh Vishwas Patankar. (If you want to check out the original Bollywood setting, find it here).

At about 2:10 you can hear the violins playing that rhythm that I mentioned, above!

Our concert marked the premiere performance of their arrangement of "Jai Ho" - very enjoyable to play in the symphony setting. The 2008 original, for all its appeal, has a good deal of that 2010's "Auto-Tune" sound which has thankfully faded in popularity. The music feels great with a live symphony, which provides the large-scale sound world that was originally created with digital audio.

Songs like the iconic "Theme from Sholay" were not as much of a stretch for orchestra - the original is already delicious hybrid of Western orchestra and Indian instruments and music.

As Roger told us, Bollywood music "draws from a wide range of influences, including Latin music, disco, funk, jazz, blues, and more. The stylistic variety is part of what makes this music so exciting and engaging to perform."

I hope the idea catches on! The music was engaging and fun to play, and the audience loved it.

Other Stories from Inside the Orchestra:

• Laurie Plays in the LA Phil: Second Violinist Faces Fear of Heights
• Lost in the Stars: Ode to a Pops Concert
• Ditching Sheet Music for the iPad - on the Concert Stage

* * *

Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.

Replies