Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor believe in interpreting the director’s vision through their music

Sheetal

Indian-British composer duo, Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor, gives a different spin to the background scores and music each time they pick up a project, keeping the director’s vision in mind.

Their recent releases, Sherni and Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa from the anthology Ray, vouch for it. The former has calm and soothing music while the latter is the opposite. The duo follows a clear-cut approach which makes them the first choice of directors like Abhishek Choubey and Amit Masurkar.

Naren says, “For both the projects, Sherni and Hungama…, it was great to be working with someone with whom we had already worked in the past. So, there was a great deal of trust on both sides. Likewise with Amit and Chaubey. They both wanted us to interpret their ideas musically. It was entirely up to us.”

With Amit, they had given music for Newton, whereas their association with Chaubey goes long back to Udta Punjab (2016) and Sonchiriya (2019).

No extra effort

Benedict believes the current stress on storytelling and lack of songs in series and movies have put the spotlight on other departments. He says, “With the stress on content and storytelling, aspects like cinematography, editing, set designing in filmmaking raise the bar and background scores just happens to be in the mix.”

Coming together

How did it all begin for these two who have given stellar background scores for hits like Udta Punjab, Paatal Lok, Newton, The Girl in the Yellow Boots, to name a few?

It all started 12 years back when Benedict was introduced to Naren by a common friend. Their first meeting soon turned into friendship and eventually a long collaboration. Not a single disagreement so far when it comes to work, Benedict says with pride, “We are sharing a creative experience equally. If I want to do everything my way, then I shouldn’t be in a collaboration.”

Time factor

Next, they will be busy making music for three web series. On how they approach a project, Naren says, “With a project like Sonchiriya, we had time to develop ideas which helped. With Avinash Arun’s Killa (2014), we were just about to start work when the film got selected for Berlin Film Festival. Then, we had to finish everything in two to three weeks, which led to different kinds of scores. It is interesting to see how different approaches to time can lead to very different kinds of work.”

With Broadway becoming a reality on the OTT space, they both are hoping for something like West Side Story to come their way.

Looking for change

One major thing that they wish for is that OTT scores get released more often on Spotify or other streaming platforms of music. People need to have an access to the background scores and tracks beyond the context of the series or movie.