The album, Musical Conversations across the Indian Ocean is available from Amazon.co.uk .
This music has been featured in our Arts Council tour over the past year (see below) and all of the music featured in those concerts can be heard on this new release.
The premise for the project is the meeting between the Portuguese missionaries and the local Indian musicians in Goa in 1510.  This, unlike other colonial impositions, featured a distinctly collaborative engagement: rather than forcing the locals to listen and learn, the missionaries invited them to contribute to - and presumably also to adapt - the music that they brought with them.  Our project was very much in the same spirit, though the Orlandos were, we hope, considerably more open to understanding the ethos of Indian music and to experiment with it.
With no clear evidence of how the original project developed, we were thus provided with the liberating excuse to imagine how the music might have sounded.  The pieces on this CD are a modern take on that first musical crossover, featuring new compositions and genuinely collaborative presentations arrived at in workshops through experimentation and discussion.  Truly, then, new music for a new audience.

“Everyone was left smiling. That this was achieved so effortlessly was down not only to the charisma of the musicians, but also to their outstanding camaraderie and musicianship as they effortlessly explained how music from 16th century Goa was inspired by earlier “fusion” of medieval Christian as well as Portuguese and Indian music.” Salisbury Chronicle

“Shahid Khan’s spine-tingling voice resonated around Wilton Church on Sunday night as the singer opened this fascinating and uplifting concert in processional style.” Salisbury Chronicle

“From Francisco Guerrero’s stunning polyphonic setting from the Song of Songs by the Orlando Consort, Jonathan Mayer’s beautifully serene ragas to Kuljit Bhamra’s explanation and demonstration de-mystifying Indian music, Mantra was truly a memorable event.” Brighton Argus

“A perfectly crafted “lesson” in how differing musical traditions can be integrated… mesmerising.” Salisbury Journal

“Billed as "musical conversations across the Indian Ocean" this was a real jewel.” Brighton Argus

“Above all, though, this is one of those glorious musical enterprises that must be heard.” Early Music Times

“A successful encounter between cultures, religion – and man!” Rems-Zeitung, Schwäbisch-Gmund, Germany

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What am I listening to?

You are listening to Je suis aussi com cils qui est ravis, a ballade by Guillaume de Machaut for three voices. As Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel puts it in her excellent liner notes for The Single Rose, our most recent recording for Hyperion Records, it is “the song of one depleted by the ravages of love.” “My head is filled with no thoughts …. Save for those of my lady love,” laments the poet-composer. You can hear more on the Hyperion website, read the engaging liner notes, and order or download tracks or the entire album in a number of formats.