Madan Gopal Singh
Encyclopedia
Madan Gopal Singh is an India
n composer, actor, screenwriter, film theorist, lyricist and editor.
(Evening Classes).
He delivered the keynote address at the Third Cinema Focus Symposium as part of the Birmingham
International Film Festival in 1991. He also introduced a package of films on Ritwik Ghatak and His Tradition at ICA http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/16+/pdf/imagineasia.pdf, London with a historical perspective on Indian cinema. He also conducted a five-day workshop on Tarkovsky at the World Literature Centrehttp://www.bangladeshlive.net/975565.html in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
2002.
He also wrote the Toona adaptation from Baba Bulle Shah which was rendered by Shubha Mudgal
for Mira Nair
's Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
http://www.amazon.ca/Kama-Sutra-Paul-Intson/dp/B000000GTR, and he wrote dialogues for Kaya Taran
http://www.chakpak.com/movie/kaya-taran/cast/18627, http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2205/stories/20050311000908200.htm a film based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The film was directed by Sashi Kumar and won the G Arvindan Award 2004.
Wrote lyrics for the Aman Ali Ayan Ali album of lounge music, Truth, produced by Times Music, 2007.
Wrote lyrics for Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's compositions sung by Pankaj Udhaas, Yaara produced by Music Today October 2007 http://www.raaga.com/channels/Hindi/movie/G0000278.html and http://www.music-today.com/yaara/
's Kasba
and Khayalgatha and Mani Kaul
's Idiot
http://srk.bollyvista.com/idiot.php. As a singer, he travelled with the legendary Kurdo-Persian singer Shahram Nazeri
to ancient Sufi towns such as Isfahan, Hamadan
& Kermenshah.
He also performed at the 2nd Sufi Soul World Music Festival held in Lahore
, Pakistan
in 2001.
Singh was invited to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
2002, Washington as a presenter-performer http://www.silkroadproject.org/smithsonian/schedule/020629.html. In all, he gave/made/conducted 28 concerts, presentations and workshops.
He also composed music for the documentary film on Kashmir- Paradise on a River of Hellhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0839942/fullcredits#cast directed by Meenu Gaur and Abir Bazaz.
He also composed music for Sabiha Sumar's celebrated Khamosh Pani
http://www.apnaorg.com/music/khamoshpani/index-1.php3, http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/hindi_bollywood/s/movie_name.7619/, http://movies2.nytimes.com/person/375546/Madan-Gopal-Singh – a French-German-Pakistan coproduction. The film has been widely acclaimed and shown the world over. It won the Best Film award at the Locarno Film Festival, 2003
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n composer, actor, screenwriter, film theorist, lyricist and editor.
Overview
Singh's doctoral dissertation is the first known semiotic study of some of the seminal texts from Indian cinema. He has written and lectured extensively on cinema, art and cultural history. He teaches English Literature at Satyawati CollegeSatyawati College
Satyawati College is a university college in New Delhi, India, affiliated to the University of Delhi. It has two shifts, morning and evening, educating about 2,000 students with a permanent teaching staff of around 150. It offers degrees in Commerce, Economics, English, Hindi, History, Mathematics,...
(Evening Classes).
He delivered the keynote address at the Third Cinema Focus Symposium as part of the Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
International Film Festival in 1991. He also introduced a package of films on Ritwik Ghatak and His Tradition at ICA http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/16+/pdf/imagineasia.pdf, London with a historical perspective on Indian cinema. He also conducted a five-day workshop on Tarkovsky at the World Literature Centrehttp://www.bangladeshlive.net/975565.html in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- Served as Executive Editor, Journal of Arts and Ideashttp://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/artsandideas/, New Delhi for nearly a decade.
- Served as a Contributing Editor, Cinemaya – the Asian Film Quarterly, for a number of years.
- Member, HOD's Committee on the Inaugural Show for the Frankfurt World Book Fair, 2006
- Member, General Council of the Indian Council for Cultural RelationsIndian Council for Cultural RelationsThe Indian Council for Cultural Relations , is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India’s external cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their peoples...
, 2006
- Visitor's nominee to Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, 2006
Writing
Singh is a scriptwriter, having written films like Rasayatrahttp://www.artechock.de/film/text/filminfo/r/ra/rasaya.htm on the well-known Hindustani classical vocalist Mallikarjun Mansur - a film that won the National Award for the best short film in 1995. The film was directed by Nandan Kudhyadi. He wrote the screenplay (jointly with the director of the film, Anup Singh), dialogues and lyrics for a feature-length film, Name of a Riverhttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm1437542/, http://movies2.nytimes.com/movie/305414/Ekti-Nadir-Naam/overview, http://www.cinemaya.net/c8-fic.asp?filmid=318§1=27 (2002), based on the life of the late Ritwik Kumar Ghatak. The film has won the G. Arvindan Award, and the Silver Dhow at the Zanzibar International Film FestivalZanzibar International Film Festival
The Zanzibar International Film Festival , also known as Festival of the Dhow Countries, is an annual film festival held in Zanzibar, Tanzania. It has been described as the largest cultural event in East Africa. During the festival, films are shown in Stone Town in Zanzibar City, as well as rural...
2002.
He also wrote the Toona adaptation from Baba Bulle Shah which was rendered by Shubha Mudgal
Shubha Mudgal
Shubha Mudgal is a well-known Indian singer of Hindustani classical music, Khayal, Thumri, Dadra, and popular Indian Pop music.She has been awarded the 1996 National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction for 'Amrit Beej', the 1998 Gold Plaque Award for Special Achievement in Music,...
for Mira Nair
Mira Nair
Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films.She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination...
's Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love is a 1996 American drama film directed by Mira Nair. The film takes its title from the ancient Indian text, the Kama Sutra, but this only serves as a common link between the characters....
http://www.amazon.ca/Kama-Sutra-Paul-Intson/dp/B000000GTR, and he wrote dialogues for Kaya Taran
Kaya Taran
Kaya Taran is a highly-acclaimed film directed by Sashi Kumar based on Malayalam short story When Big Tree Falls by N.S...
http://www.chakpak.com/movie/kaya-taran/cast/18627, http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2205/stories/20050311000908200.htm a film based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The film was directed by Sashi Kumar and won the G Arvindan Award 2004.
Wrote lyrics for the Aman Ali Ayan Ali album of lounge music, Truth, produced by Times Music, 2007.
Wrote lyrics for Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's compositions sung by Pankaj Udhaas, Yaara produced by Music Today October 2007 http://www.raaga.com/channels/Hindi/movie/G0000278.html and http://www.music-today.com/yaara/
Music
He is a singer of Sufi texts and has sung for films like Kumar ShahaniKumar Shahani
Kumar Shahani is a noted Indian Film director, born in Larkana, Sindh , on 7 December 1940. After the Partition of India his family shifted to the city of Bombay...
's Kasba
Kasba
Kasba is a suburb of the city of Kolkata, India. It is situated in the southern part of the city encircled by the Sealdah South section of the Eastern Railways to the west, Dhakuria and Haltu to the south, the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass to the east and the locality of Tiljala to the...
and Khayalgatha and Mani Kaul
Mani Kaul
Mani Kaul was an Indian film director of Hindi films. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and later became a teacher. Started his career with Uski Roti , which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, he went on to win...
's Idiot
Idiot (film)
Idiot is a Telugu film which released on 22 August 2002 and was directed by Puri Jagannadh. This film stars Ravi Teja and Rakshita. This film was a big hit in 2002 and was a remake of the superhit Kannada movie Appu starring Puneet Rajkumar and Rakshita.-Plot:Chanti is the son of a head constable...
http://srk.bollyvista.com/idiot.php. As a singer, he travelled with the legendary Kurdo-Persian singer Shahram Nazeri
Shahram Nazeri
Shahram Nazeri is a contemporary Iranian tenor of Kurdish ancestry who sings classical Persian music from Kermanshah. He is one of Iran's most respected vocalists...
to ancient Sufi towns such as Isfahan, Hamadan
Hamadan
-Culture:Hamadan is home to many poets and cultural celebrities. The city is also said to be among the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.Handicrafts: Hamadan has always been well known for handicrafts like leather, ceramic, and beautiful carpets....
& Kermenshah.
He also performed at the 2nd Sufi Soul World Music Festival held in Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in 2001.
Singh was invited to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Smithsonian Folklife Festival
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, launched in 1967, is an international exhibition of living cultural heritage presented annually in the summer in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is held for two weeks around the Fourth of July holiday...
2002, Washington as a presenter-performer http://www.silkroadproject.org/smithsonian/schedule/020629.html. In all, he gave/made/conducted 28 concerts, presentations and workshops.
He also composed music for the documentary film on Kashmir- Paradise on a River of Hellhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0839942/fullcredits#cast directed by Meenu Gaur and Abir Bazaz.
He also composed music for Sabiha Sumar's celebrated Khamosh Pani
Khamosh Pani
Khamosh Pani is a 2003 French/German production about a widowed mother and her young son set in a late 1970s village in Punjab, Pakistan which is coming under radical influence.The film was released in India too...
http://www.apnaorg.com/music/khamoshpani/index-1.php3, http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/hindi_bollywood/s/movie_name.7619/, http://movies2.nytimes.com/person/375546/Madan-Gopal-Singh – a French-German-Pakistan coproduction. The film has been widely acclaimed and shown the world over. It won the Best Film award at the Locarno Film Festival, 2003
Partial timeline
- September 2004 – invited to make a Lec-Dem presentation at the Intangible Heritage Seminar held in Barcelona as part of the Barcelona Dialog, Forum 2004
- October 2004 performed at "Another Passage to India" http://www.sgg.ch/theatre/saisons/04/India.html festival held in Geneva and Zurich. Also presented Name of a River with the director Anup Singh.
- 2004-2005 – as a specialist commentator in NDTV India's Hum Log in a New Year focus on Sufi music.
- April 2005 – was invited to Lucas Artists Residency Program at the Montalvo Art Center http://www.villamontalvo.org/ar_artists.html, Saratoga, California. He collaborated with the sound engineer David Fulton to do design music for the Indian artist Ranbir Kaleka's http://www.rkaleka.com/biblio.htmhttp://www.rkaleka.com/biography.htm installation that was subsequently exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2005 http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/venezia/bien51/eng/ind/text-1.htm.
- June 2005 – Outlook India, Opinion on Jo Bole So Nihalhttp://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050606&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=4
- June 2005 – was invited to be part of a prestigious Musician Residency Program called the SOUND RES http://www.soundres.org/past_edition.html at San Ceasario, Lecce, Italy. Worked with internationally known, eminent musicians such as Theo BleckmannTheo BleckmannTheo Bleckmann is a vocalist and composer.-Biography:Theo Bleckmann is a jazz singer and new music composer, he was GRAMMY NOMINATED and received the ECHO award in 2010...
, David Cossin, Gregg August, David SheppardDavid SheppardDavid Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool was the high-profile Bishop of Liverpool in the Church of England who played cricket for Sussex and England in his youth...
and Luca Tarantino. Gave highly successful concerts and conducted workshops with them.http://www.soundres.org/past_edition.html
- July 2005 – was invited to an Artist Residency at Torcito http://www.soundres.org/ in Otronto, Salento, Italy. Worked on the Punjabi love-legend Heer Ranjha with his musicians from India.
- July 2005 – performed at the Town Hall Festival, Bari, Italy.
- July 2005 – performed at the Experimenta 2005 http://www.comune.alberobello.ba.it/uff_stampa/experimenta05.pdf, Alberobello, Italy.
- December 2005 - invited to lecture at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune
- January 2006 – composed music for Beyond Partition – a film by Lalit Joshi http://www.southasiancinema.com/beyondpartition.htm, South Asian Cinema Foundation, London.
- February 2006 – composed music for Fana’a – Ranjha Revisited – a musical by Navtej Johar http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060215/punjab1.htm#6. It was showcased at the Virasat Festival, Patiala recently.
- May 2006 – participated in the Bonn Biennale, 2006 and appeared as the main chorus in two performances of Agra Bazaar directed by Habib Tanvir
- October 2006 – Conceived and designed the inaugural show of the World Book Fair, Frankfurt http://www.melange.org.uk/pages/news.htm
- November 2006 – Presented a package of films at Rio de Janeiro and Auro Preto in an International Festival, Imagem dos Povos, Brazil http://www.imagemdospovos.com.br/
- December 2006 – Performed at the Other Festival http://www.theotherfestival.com/2006/fanaa.html, Chennai
- December 2006 – Performed at Kalakshetra, Chennai
- January 2007 – Performed in the Festival of India http://www.bozar.be/activity.php?id=6661, Brussels
- April 2007 - MediArtists Concert - (a lot of factually incorrect information at the following website) http://sufinews.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html at Ludhiana
- July 2007 - Moderated a discussion on the Cinematic Time at the Osian-Cinefan Film Festival http://220.226.203.134/cinefan/cinefan.php, New Delhi. Participants included eminent filmmaker Mani Kaul http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002411/, cinematographer Anil Mehta http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0576540/, KU Mohnan http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0595933/ and 'Dilip Verma
- October 2007 - 'Before the Hanging' - a lead article on Bhagat Singh for Tehelkahttp://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=hub201007Before.asp, New Delhi