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Features |  19 Jun 2015 18:42 |  By RnMTeam

Musicians of Indian origin making a mark on international TV

MUMBAI: Few may know that the people behind the music of some of the award-winning and critically acclaimed international series such as ‘Girls’, ‘The Royals’, ‘90210’, ‘Citizen Khan’ and many more, have Indian roots. This World Music Day, we take a look at four individuals with roots in India, who have made a name for themselves on American and British television. Here are four such individuals:

Manish Raval

He is best known for his work as music supervisor of the award winning American comedy series, ‘Girls’. Although he has placed music for various other television series like ‘New Girl’ and ‘Community’, it was only after the HBO series premiered, that Raval gained mainstream recognition. ‘Girls’ features music from many indie acts such as Santigold, Grouplove, Icona Pop, Fleet Foxes as well as some mainstream acts such as Lily Allen, Beck and others.

Raval and fellow ‘Girls’ music supervisor Tom Wolfe, established their own music supervision and music editing agency called Aperture Music in 1998 in California. They were presented with the Music Supervisor of the Year Award in 2012 for their work in ‘Girls’ by the American Guild of Music Supervisors. Since then, Aperture Music has carved a niche for itself as one of the top music supervision teams in film and television. Raval is currently working on placing music for the upcoming FOX comedy series ‘The Grinder’.

Siddhartha Khosla

Many know Siddhartha Khosla as the frontman of American indie rock act Goldspot, best known for modern classics like ‘Rewind’ and ‘Friday’ among others. Khosla’s music has been featured on popular television series such as ‘The O.C.’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’, among others.

However, the singer/songwriter has also composed music for critically acclaimed comedy series ‘The Neighbors’ and most recently for ‘The Royals’. He is also set to compose the music for the upcoming untitled comedy about a non-English speaking basketball novice and a non-basketball speaking translator played by Skyler Astin (Pitch Perfect).

Kully Bhamra

Bhamra is a British music producer and artist, who has composed music for a number of famous American television shows such as ‘90210’, ‘Modern Family’, ‘Sex And The City’, ‘Will & Grace’, ‘Frasier’, ‘Every Body Hates Chris’, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ and ‘America’s Next Top Model’, and even famous Australian soap opera, ‘Home And Away’. Being well versed with raagas and harmonies, Bhamra can sing ghazals in Urdu and Hindi, and can also sing in Punjabi. His music was featured in the Woody Allen film ‘Blue Jasmine’.

Speaking about how he got his music featured in American television, Bhamra said that it happened accidentally. He said he was in LA for the Billboard Hollywood Reporter Film and TV Music Conference where he met LA sync mission delegates. After introducing himself and his company, Kully B Productions, he explained he was in the city to get more of his music featured in film and TV.

Kam Frantic

Frantic is a British composer, arranger, music producer and sound engineer with an experience of almost quarter of a decade. He has been producing Bhangra music in the UK since the 1980s, and is known for tracks such as ‘Kangna’, ‘Ah Ni Kuriye’, ‘Jawani’, ‘Gal Sun’ by Jinx, ‘Main Nee Peenda’ by Garry Sandhu and ‘Sachiyan’ by Dr. Zeus, amongst others.

Established over two decades ago, Frantic owns and runs Frantic Studios, a music production studio that has been used for recording many well known show tunes.

Currently, he is credited as the theme music composer and music producer for the BBC comedy series ‘Citizen Khan’, which follows the trials and tribulations of the self-appointed Muslim community leader Mr. Khan.

(Reporting by Aashay Dalvi; Editing by Sanchea D'Souza)

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