New Zealand’s First Bollywood Concert With Live Symphony Orchestra - Coming Soon!

Aariaa Events and Bendith Media have come together to present New Zealand’s first-ever Bollywood Concert with live Symphony Orchestra comprising a group of forty-five musicians and singers from the prestigious St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra, popular Indo-Kiwi band Sargam Fusion, and many other leading independent artists from across the country.

The concert will feature iconic songs by the legendary Bollywood music director trio – Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy who have composed music for numerous soundtracks in different languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi. The terrific trio have won many critically acclaimed awards over their 25-year career and are renowned across Southeast Asia for their contemporary style of blending Indian music with world music.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra. It is a massive project and a world-class production with the best of the best artists and crew members handpicked from across Aotearoa. It’s my dream project and I cannot wait for it to happen,” says Ashish Ramakrishnan, co-organiser and event director.

This project is unique in many ways – this is the first Indian concert in New Zealand with Symphony Orchestra, the country’s first production that has the music arrangement being done back in Mumbai, the heart of Bollywood, and is a premiere collaboration of St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra with Indian artists. “This is like nothing we have done before. Bollywood appeals to almost everyone and got us excited instantaneously. The team is so looking forward to performing with some very talented artists,” Stephanie Van Leuven, coordinating member, St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra.

The musicians and singers involved come with years of experience across thousands of concerts and have collaborated with Bollywood artists as well as global artists, including Grammy Award Winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhat, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Fazal Qureshi and other stalwarts in Indian Classical music.

This multicultural event will bring together artists and audiences of diverse nationalities on a single platform truly living the global spirit of New Zealand. “Watching a stage full of singers and musicians performing live plus many surprises throughout the show will be a treat for the audience. A true showcase of diversity and inclusion where ‘East meets West’ on one stage. Auckland audiences are going to have a power-packed entertaining evening with their favourite Bollywood songs,” adds Ashish.

Bollywood Symphony Concert will be held at 7:00pm on Saturday, 27th August in Victory Convention Centre, Beaumont Street, Auckland CBD. Tickets are available online via TicketBazaar.co.nz and also directly from the organisers. This one-of-a-kind event is going to be worth your time and bucks, don’t miss out.

About the organising team:

The organisers, Ashish Ramakrishnan, Basant Madhur and Dinesh Raniga, come with rich hands on experience with large-scale Bollywood shows. This event is the brainchild of Ashish Ramakrishnan, singer and owner of Bendith Media who won the Indian TV singing reality show, Zee TV Sa Re Ga Ma, deemed as popular as the New Zealand Idol. Basant Madhur is a musician and owns the Sargam School of Music, teaching and promoting Indian performing arts in Auckland since 2006. Dinesh Raniga is a leading organiser of concerts of International Bollywood artists with a history of houseful events in the past. It was his company, Aariaa events that managed the concert of the Oscar Winner, A. R. Rahman in New Zealand in 2017.

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