Listen To An Orchestral Cover Of Sulk Station's 'Splendor' By Berklee Student
15 June 2015
This is the kind of news that really puts a smile on our face.
Berklee College of Music student and musician Kśitijā Rāwal, originally from New Delhi, recently covered and arranged ‘Splendor’ from Sulk Stations 2012 album ‘Till You Appear’ in an orchestral performance with 15 other musicians.
‘Splendor’ was a small (“but significant”, as the student of Music Therapy puts it) part of his spring semester recital. He claims that his “greed for bigger orchestration” allowed him to bring in more musicians from all over the world for his performance.
“My decision to include Splendor to my overall arrangement was quite random. A friend from back home, who is also a big fan of Sulk Station, introduced me to this song last year and I fell in love with it right away. I prepared the arrangement literally 5 days before the performance. Vividly speaking, I was on my way to my Music Therapy Practicum site and without thinking about it, played Splendor on my phone while browsing artists, and right there and then I decided to include it in my recital, as I could loudly hear in my head the extent of musical possibilities.
My objective while arranging Splendor was to build a subtle connections between the elements of Indian Classical music (the singing pattern), to that of Western Classical music (string and piano), keeping the electronic/trip-hop theme to its centrality (which is one of my favourite genres for musical expression).” - Kśitijā Rāwal
The video emerged online soon after the very well received Alternative India UK tour with Sulk Station, Curtain Blue and Nicholson. It’s incredibly heartening to see Indian talent recognized globally and spreading itself out to a more expansive terrain.
This is what Sulk Station’s vocalist Tanvi Rao had to say about the Berklee performance: “It’s unbelievably exciting. These wonderful musicians arranging our song, transcribing and performing it, is something I never even dreamed of. I really hope we can get to play with a real string section and a live band someday.”
Rawal’s rendition of ‘Splendor’ can be heard and seen in its entirety below and you can listen to the original track by Sulk Station here. Follow the Bangalore based duo on Facebook for updates and SoundCloud for more music.