Hitting a high note with Hollywood glitterati
Lakshman Joseph de Saram is the composer of the 2012 Columbia
Pictures film ‘Bel Ami,’ and is one of the few South Asians and only Sri
Lankan to share the main creative credits for a major Hollywood film
starring some of the world’s biggest names. Lakshman was born in Colombo
to Sita de Saram and Sooty Banda. His mother was a teacher of music and
a sculptor, and his father was a newspaper columnist. The household he
grew up in was hardly ‘average.'
The dissemination of the fine arts was foremost. No matter where you
turned; you were confronted with some sort of esoteric facet of world
culture. From the writings of Gurdjieff, the plays of Odets, to worn out
copies of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to Beethoven’s late Quartet’s to
a host of strange musical instruments. It was total indoctrination!
The school Lakshman went to was Royal College, which was a pleasant
time in his life.
Composing music
According to Lakshman, his school memories are both traumatic and
happy. And along the way, he picked up some really good friends.
Lakshman Joseph de Saram. Picture by Kesara Ratnavibhushana |
Asked about when he began dreaming of writing music for Hollywood
films, he says, “One of my adolescent fantasies was to be a big
Hollywood producer! Making the blockbusters, going to the Oscars,
throwing lavish parties on mega-yachts! Deep stuff. Composing music was
the last thing on my mind. Getting involved in composing for film
happened relatively recently at a roof top party in 2000, when a friend,
Boodee Keerthisena convinced me to write something for his second
feature."
On the fine art of composition, Lakshman says, "The melody, you have
to have in you. The learning process happened throughout my time in New
York City. There is also the scale of composition, like between Wagner’s
‘Ring Cycle’ and a 28 second jingle. Film composition, which I am into,
fits somewhere in-between,”
At the age of 13, he made his professional debut with Professor Earl
De Fonseka and the Symphony Orchestra of Colombo.
He calls the experience wonderful and harrowing. “It’s always a nice
thing to perform in public, especially when you are able to perform to a
certain standard, the adulation is also lovely. The harrowing part is
the fact that at 13 years, you probably would prefer doing something
more fun other than staying in a room for hours a day, months on end,
memorizing and deciphering Mendelssohn’s Violin concerto.”
Violin lessons
At the surprisingly young age of four, he began taking violin lessons
from his mother and proceeded to formal studies with Eileen Prins, the
principle violinist of the Symphony Orchestra. “Those days were good and
bad. Ask anyone who has had their life’s direction decided for them at
the age of four, it's hard to feel ecstatic about those early days, but
it happens all the time in the world of high-end training for kids of
classical music, gymnastics, ballet and maybe even tennis these days.
It’s a well organized industry out there. I remember at nine being
informed that the pre college of the Juilliard School, which many
consider to be one of the hardest schools to get into in the US, was
what I had to aim for, or else it was going to be changing oil at the
garage down at the dead end of the street.
The pressure was enormous. Because, unlike most other fields of
study, in classical music, benchmarks had to be regularly attained at
ridiculously young ages in order for you to keep being eligible to run
with the best. And ever since the American virtuoso Erik Friedman
successfully auditioned me as a candidate for advanced training, I was
14 at the time, all my options of pursuing any other career were taken
away. Sounds scary, but talk to some of my classmates like the
hyper-virtuoso Midori, I had it relatively easy. And the good part, as a
kid, all this concentration and preparation made me officially exempt
from most subjects at Royal!"
Global icons
At the age of 12, Lakshman was selected as a Sri Lankan
representative at the UN sponsored 'Year of the Child' held in Bulgaria.
Lakshman recalls that time as exciting, from flying communist Aeroflot,
to the final concert in front of a huge audience and the following gala
reception at the Bulgarian head of state's palace, all this was
incredible stuff for a 12 year old. In 1983, he moved to New York City
and was admitted to the ultra elite School of Performing Arts, where his
classmates were the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Chaz Bono. He was also
at the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard Pre College.
“Those were heady days, they were challenging and life changing. The
environment was total immersion. Music, drama, art, dance. You belonged
to a body of the most cutting edge young talent in the US that was being
groomed by the best in the world. No compromisers. These were schools
that had produced global icons like Di Niro, Wynton Marsalis, Pinchas
Zukerman, Al Pacino, Liza Minnelli; these were the acts you had to
follow. And the cavalcade continues, like the current hip-hop hottie
Nicky Minaj for instance. I remember our high school productions
rivaling big professional outfits, the talent, extreme competition and
drive was such. All of that has contributed in framing my position in
the arts today.”
Asked who is the greatest influence in his life and which composers
he admires most, Lakshman replied that many things have influenced him
and continue to influence him. “I know and admire too many living
composers, so I’ll stick with the dead, but these change all the time
too, but if there is one composer that I listen to more often than any
other, it would be Bruckner. And I have my brother Rohan to thank for
that."
As for the future, Lakshman plans to continue writing film music and
work on the development of the classical arts, namely music, in Sri
Lanka. |