Music Is Escapism with Nitin Sawhney
Nitin Sawhney speaks to some of his favourite artists and composers.
Producer, composer, and DJ Nitin Sawhney hosts this episode. He grew up studying the piano, guitar, sitar and tabla, and released his debut album ‘Spirit Dance’ in 1993. Since then he has scored music for theatre, dance, video games and cinema, including the BBC TV series Human Planet. He’s produced albums for the likes of Helene Grimaud and Anoushka Shankar, conducted and composed for the London Symphony Orchestra, and had his own BBC classical prom. He’s also DJ’ed at world-renowned London nightclub Fabric and has worked with Paul McCartney, Nelson Mandela, Joss Stone, Annie Lennox, Sting and Mira Nair. His new album ‘Identity’ will be coming out this year on October 13th.
Tim Burgess is a singer, musician, and record label owner best known as the front man of influential English rock band, The Charlatans. He’s enjoyed an incredibly successful career in music, from releasing chart-topping singles throughout the 90s, to exploring the fabric of pop and rock in his books and ever-popular social media events, called “Tim’s Twitter Listening Party”.
Nainita Desai is an award winning composer of film, television and video game music with a background in sound design. She creates powerful emotive scores and moves seamlessly between working with orchestras, to using her collection of custom made instruments. Some of her recent projects include ‘The Reason I Jump’, an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity, and the Oscar nominated documentary ‘For Sama’.
Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a composer, singer and cellist whose music crosses the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae, soul and R&B. She’s toured with the likes of Anoushka Shankar and Courtney Pine, recorded with Akala, and composed for the London Symphony Orchestra, effortlessly straddling different musical worlds.
Together they’ll be talking about how their family and cultural history impacts their creativity, being conscious of who they’re representing when creating, and how their output is a reflection of their changing identities.
In part 2 of the show, Tim Burgess shares a playlist he’s called ‘Heroes and Heroines’, featuring music from Kate Bush, Curtis Mayfield, and David Bowie.
