This month’s Birmingham Town Hall concert by Bhangra Symphonica - an integration of bhangra-rock fusion band Kissmet and classical music masters Orchestra of the Swan - promises to be a big, bold and beautiful experience. What’s On spoke to Ron & Buzz Singh of Kissmet, alongside Orchestra of the Swan’s artistic director, David Le Page, to get a flavour of the epic collaboration...

Bhangra Symphonica is the meeting of two genre-blending powerhouses. Orchestra of the Swan, headed up by Artistic Director David Le Page, aim to break down the starchy stigma around classical music, while Kissmet, started by brothers Ron and Buzz Singh, blends traditional bhangra with classic rock. 

In collaboration, they create a thrilling and mesmerising experience, and are bringing that irresistible energy to Birmingham this month. 

The partnership began, however, in a much humbler setting, with David visiting Ron and Buzz in Peterborough, to test the waters together in a jam session.

“Dave got his violin and I had my harmonium, and they just sang to each other,” Ron explains. “It was such a revelation playing with Dave, because he’s an absolutely phenomenal musician. 

“We knew that the sound was completely unique; I’ve never heard anything like it before - this whole fusion of different genres, different instruments, different languages and different cultures, all coming together. But they work so well!”

The first iteration of Bhangra Symphonica hit the stage in Coventry, followed by a show at Alcester’s Ragley Hall, featuring a selection of classical musicians from Orchestra of the Swan, the remainder of Kissmet, and most importantly, an audience.

“Being a classical musician, you don’t always get instant feedback from the audience,” says David. “The concerts that we do with Bhangra Symphonica are akin to a religious experience in some ways. I know it’s expected in any live performance, but especially at these gigs - the audience is as important as the band.”
“We try to make the audience another band member,” adds Buzz, “so that everyone feels a part of the experience. Like Dave said, it feels religious - I think it also feels spiritual. We’re all on that same journey; we’re all looking to find peace, happiness and safety within ourselves.”

Bhangra Symphonica’s fusion reaches beyond the music into the groups’ respective audiences. “It breaks down lots of barriers,” says Buzz. “As Kissmet, who are singing in English, Punjabi, Hindi, playing rock music and playing bhangra, that was already quite unique in itself. Now, bringing the orchestra on with us as well - lots of our audiences have never heard violin live, or cello.”

Kissmet’s melting pot of influences stretches back to Buzz and Ron’s childhood, and the street where they grew up in Peterborough.

Ron explains: “Within half a mile there was the Pentecostal church, so on Sunday morning we were hearing gospel. Right next door to that was the mosque, and we would hear the Friday evening call to prayers. You’d walk a bit further down the road and there was the Marcus Garvey Centre, playing Rastafarian reggae music. A bit further down, there was the Sikh temple, the Hindu Samaj, the Ukrainian club, the Roman Catholic church… As we were going to school, we heard all these different musical genres playing at the same time. 

“As children, you don’t realise that they’re different; you just think of it as music - you don’t even think that they’re all singing in different languages.”

The final piece of Kissmet’s puzzle was the influence of rock music.

“We listened to Top Of The Pops and we’d hear Whole Lotta Love,” says Ron. “Then, when we became musicians, I’d say to my guitarist ‘Can you play the Top Of The Pops tune?’ ‘What, Whole Lotta Love?’ I listened to it and I thought, that sounds Indian to me… so we’d start singing Punjabi lyrics over the top.”

The band’s new collaboration with Orchestra of the Swan has brought a further dimension to the sound experience, blending a classical influence into the mix.

Buzz paints a picture of Bhangra Symphonica’s stage presence: “We’re Sikhs with turbans and beards, and we’ve got English bass players, and we’ve got an orchestra behind us. It’s amalgamating what we all are - we’re all from one source. That’s where the spiritual energy comes into it. People are listening to the sounds of each genre mixing together, and that’s basically what we are as human beings.”

Orchestra of the Swan, David attests, have just as much to gain from the collaboration: “It’s enlightening on both sides completely. It broadens our horizons. It’s an amazing body of music, the classical world, but sometimes its amazingness is a little bit like a museum piece - it reached the end of the 19th century and felt a bit stuck. 

“One of the first things I did was get rid of the penguin suits and tails, all of that stuff, so it felt like there were human beings playing the music. At the heart of it, the music of Beethoven and Mozart is extraordinary, and it’s emotional, and it really connects. What doesn’t connect are some of those unhelpful rituals that are associated with the classical world, like clapping in a certain place…”

“No one told me about that one, Dave,” interrupts Ron, “clapping in the wrong place!”

“I quite often say to the audience ‘I don’t mind where you clap,’” David continues. “I’ve tried to foster that approach in the classical world, but that’s kind of slow progress. When we work with Bhangra Symphonica, it’s amazing for the classical musicians to suddenly feel such an extraordinarily strong and immediate reaction to what you’re playing.”

The practicalities of this collaboration needed to be considered as well. Buzz, as Kissmet’s drummer, had to be flexible to balance the new instrumentation: “With the percussion side, you do have to adjust slightly because it’s not like rock and bhangra: bam bam bam! Now we’re putting a bit of class into our performance! So there’s slight changes in volumes and beats, but that’s what you have to do - you have to give everybody respect in their own instrument. We want everybody to be heard.”

Bhangra Symphonica’s combined influences, instruments and individuals creates something really special. The band perform at Birmingham Town Hall on the 8th of June - a venue David knows well, having frequently performed there with Orchestra of the Swan: “We haven’t played there for a while now, but we used to play there several times a season. It’s a very grand mid-19th century institution building, and it was refurbished about 15 years ago. It still has that Victorian feel to it, but it’s a modern, airy space as well. It has a lot of different kinds of music - classical music, but lots of bands as well. It feels like it’s the right setting for what we’re doing -  joining these two musics together.”

With the venue fitting Bhangra Symphonica like a glove, there’s one thing missing: the audience. The gig promises to be quite a spectacular experience - and according to Ron, the electricity in the room is essential: “As artists, it’s so important for us to have that level of engagement with the people in front of us. Without them, we can’t do anything. Dave, Buzz and I, we’re not musicians who want to perform and have people listening to us - we want to perform and have people interacting with us, engaging, and going on the journey with us.”

The group are driven by a wish to unite people’s experiences, resonating all the way from the music, to the stage, to the audience. As Ron says: “The whole world is disintegrating into chaos, and we’ve got this little jewel of harmony, happiness, unity, diversity and multiculturalism - all the positive words you can put together. We need people to sit up and listen, because this is an opportunity to bring people together.

“Come with open ears, open minds, open hearts, and we will go on an incredible journey together.”

By Jessica Clixby

Bhangra Symphonica plays at Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday 8 June