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Dateline: 21st October, 2003 India and Finland Join to Score Lord of the Rings Popular Indian composer A R Rahman and the Finnish contemporary folk group Värttinä are to collaborate on creating the music for the musical version of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which opens in the West End in spring 2005. A R Rahman has composed the soundtracks for over fifty Bollywood films, which have sold over 100 million soundtrack albums. He has also composed for television and recording artists. A R Rahman is best known in the West for writing the music for Bombay Dreams, currently playing to sell-out business in London, and opening on Broadway in Spring 2004. Värttinä, fronted by three female singers and supported by six acoustic musicians, are now celebrating their 20th year and the release of their 10th album. Since 1990, they have toured internationally and built a reputation as one of the most inventive and uncompromising ensembles in the contemporary world music arena. The original inspiration for Tolkien's stories and languages (such as Elvish), and for much of Värttinä's music and lyrics, is the Kalevala, Finland's national epic of mythological songs, poems and stories. Producer Kevin Wallace says, "A fusion of A R Rahman's and Värttinä's exceptional talent and contemporary sound, rooted in the antiquity of their respective traditions, will provide Tolkien's mythological world of Middle Earth with a pure, unique and dynamic score. At the heart of this spectacular epic is an intense story of personal and collective endeavour that grips the audience's imagination, immersing them completely in the experience; the music of A R Rahman and Värttinä has the dramatic range to do just that. I am pleased the music of the project's initial composers Stephen Keeling and Bernd Stromberger is also available to the production". The opening of the musical is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the publication of the full Lord of the Rings trilogy. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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