Internationally recognised Durban born songstress, Shashika Mooruth, is set to launch her new album today at Sibaya’s iZulu Theatre.
The eight track album titled Heart to Heart, is her first romantic offering and portray her experiences from adolescence to womanhood.
“The songs portray not just different emotions of love but also love as experienced from adolescence to womanhood. These are songs composed for me, my very own songs in which I could showcase my versatility to sing in a voice that spans different ages of a woman in love,” Mooruth said.
She said she has sung as an adolescent would, when she feels the early stages of love, to a teenager excited about her first love, to a young woman in her 20s madly in love, to a woman sultry and sexy in her desire for her lover and finally to a woman who suffers extreme pain and separation from her beloved.
“The compositions and my singing complement each other like heart and soul. The interplay of traditional music with electronic sounds gives a perfect blend and texture to the moods portrayed,” Mooruth said.
In the past Mooruth has released many devotional albums, but Heart to Heart is her first romantic album.
Her inspiration for the album came after a beautiful compliment.
“When the great Pakistani artiste Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saheb heard me sing, he said 'a voice steeped in emotion that comes only from a higher realm, not everyone receives this gift”. I understood over the years of diving deeper into my music that music is my higher connection and that emotion is the key to that. I was inspired to now experiment with different genres to experience the emotion in my voice,” she said.
Together with her main composer Rajeev Mahavir, the two set out to compose a romantic album. Mahavir has composed six of the eight songs. The album also features compositions from Babul Bose a very well-known Bengali film music director and Neeraj Sridhar who is well known singer and composer of Bombay Viking band.
“While I did release original compositions in the past, that was way back in the 80s, thereafter I embarked on a journey of devotional music. Heart to Heart is totally on a level of professional Bollywood arrangements. It is a huge leap in my music from what I have attempted in the past,” said Mooruth.
Mooruth felt there was no other place to launch her album other than the city she grew up in. And as part of her creative concepts for the concert, has teamed up with Bollywood actress, Zeenat Aman.
“I feet that as this is a really great moment on my music journey and I want to share it in the city that I grew up in and amongst the well-wishers who follow my music all these years. I am very fortunate that in Mumbai, Shri Anup Jalota already received and gave the album his blessings for the South African launch,” she said.
She said the concert will be a two-in-one experience for audience.
“I invited Ms Zeenat Aman I felt that she like many actresses of her times are legends that we did not meet though we grew up watching their movies. I wanted to bring to my audience the unexpected,” Mooruth said.
Her final words: “Music connects, it transforms, it heals. I always want to sing from my soul as only then I will touch the soul of my listener. In today’s world, the situations and crises we see around us, we need to elevate our consciousness. So sound vibration is absolutely important and therefore I wish my listeners would listen to my songs in any genre that I sing, to receive that vibration,” she said.
*The concert takes place at Sibaya’s iZulu Theatre on today. Tickets are priced at R300, R350.00 and R450 from Computicket, Shoprite/Checkers or Sibaya Box Office.