Amrit Ramnath.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Amrit Ramnath had just signed his first film as a music director for the Malayalam movie Varshangalkku Shesham in March 2023, when he received news that his mother, acclaimed singer Bombay Jayashri, had suffered an aneurysm while on her U.K. tour. The next few weeks were very challenging for Amrit and his father, Ramnath.
“I had thousands of dreams, but was faced with one single reality. This is what inspired me to work on my new EP 100,000 Dreams. The album is symbolic of how people go through various things in life, and yet hope for the best,” says the 26-year-old Chennai-based musician, best-known for his independent tracks ‘Manase’, ‘Nee Oli’ and ‘Kaatre Va’.
The EP will be released by Sony Music on August 23, and the first single ‘Kanavugal Kandein’ was released on July 25. “I wanted to capture the feeling of liberation. I have an affinity for the classical nylon string guitar, so I began with that. Then I used the Budapest Scoring Orchestra for the strings,” he says. The video has been directed by Parizad D.
The album also has two versions of the song ‘Nila’, which was written by Jayashri while recovering. Amrit will perform the songs at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai on August 22.
Amrit’s mother Bombay Jayashri’s illness inspired him to come up with the EP
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Naturally, Amrit has been surrounded by music all his life. While his mother has been a major influence, his father also played a big role. He recalls. “He was a chartered accountant, but after I was born and my mother’s career was flourishing, he played the role of a homemaker. He has a little business that keeps him happy. But he is an unsung artiste, because he also writes poetry in Urdu, and has released a book.”
Though Amrit learnt Carnatic music, he later switched to western classical and played the violin and piano. His independent songs are rich in melody, and have a lot of guitarwork and string arrangements.
Amrit says he grew up on music from across India. “My mother hails from Mumbai and my father from Kolkata. I was exposed to Hindi film music, Hindustani music, sufi, Bengali songs, Marathi songs and more. These days, when I watch movies I look at how music is used. It all comes into my music.”
Amrit Ramnath plans to keep his independent music and film work running parallelly.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
The film break happened when Malayalam director Vineeth Sreenivasan approached him for Varshangalkku Shesham. Amrit recalls, “I made most of the songs from the hospital, where my mother was admitted. She has written the lyrics of ‘Nyabagam’, the only Tamil song in the album which I have sung. It’s a song about lost friendship but it is much more that.”
While Varshangalkku Shesham has different lyricists, Amrit worked with singers K.S. Chithra, Sreevalsan J. Menon, Balram, Hesham Abdul Wehab and Siddharth Basrur. He has now signed his first Tamil film, which stars Siddharth. “I’ll try to keep my independent music and film work running parallelly. I have a few singles lined up and they include some in Hindi,” says Amrit.