MAGICAL THEATRES: THE MUSIC OF PARAM VIR

Extract

Param Vir was born in Delhi in 1952 and has lived and worked in Britain since 1984. His greatest success has been in opera, and the two orchestral works in his catalogue also testify to a remarkable theatrical sensibility. Vir's music embodies and feeds off the contradictions of his life. Although rooted firmly in the modernist aesthetic of Western contemporary music, Vir's Indian background and education have left a mark on his music. His emigration has resulted in alienation from a national identity, leaving him an outsider both in India and Britain. He is contracted to a venerable English publisher – Novello & Co. – but is himself outside the contemporary music establishment and academy. These contradictions are reflected both in Vir's central themes of otherness and self-discovery and his exploration of exotic and colourful instrumental sonorities, which together make him an important and unusual voice in contemporary music.