Maria Roe Roshni Vincent on showcasing her Acapella skills with her latest cover
Maria with her choral group El Fe
She’s only in her 20s, but already has a string of impressive achievements to her repertoire — a playback singer for top composers in the industry, a degree from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, the experience of being a teacher at A.R. Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory, establishing herself as an independent artist, and of course, founding contemporary choral group El Fe, widely regarded as the pioneers of vocal music in the country.
But for the talented Maria ‘Roe’ Vincent, her journey in music is always ongoing and experimental — which led to her most recent claim to fame — an outstanding Acapella cover of Ilayaraaja’s Nee Partha Parvai, in which the youngster recreates every musical note used in the song’s recording, with just her voice!
The YouTube video, which showcases Roe in nine different split screens (using different variations of her voice to create the desired song effect), was recorded without using any instruments at all. It was possibly her most challenging task to date, she says.
“The idea struck me when I made a demo of Raja sir’s songs to send to him. I released my first solo single, Neethan Yen Dream Girl last year, to a decent response — that gave me the confidence to go ahead with this new one. The recent video definitely took a lot more time to record and program, but I’m happy with the results,” Roe says.
If her first music video made her recognisable as a rising independent musician, it is with her brainchild El Fe that Roe’s truly made her talent count. “We are a group of youngsters with a common passion for vocal music. We use keys and percussion during our acts or recordings, but by and large, the focus for the choir is on the vocals. The group is open to anyone with an interest in honing their skills as part of the group dynamic; everyone’s in it for the music,” she smiles.
El Fe’s credit of work, apart from a number of stunning live acts, include numerous movies such as 3, Maryan, Maan Karate, etc to mention a few, and Roe adds that their a music video is in the works, “There are other videos and footage of us performing, but our first official video will chronicle Tamil hit songs from last year, and will be out soon.”
Having lent her voices to hit tracks such as Adiye (Kadal), Hey (Vanakkam Chennai), Madras to Madurai (Aambala), Roe also says that she identifies herself also as an independent pop artist — “My genre of music is primarily pop, with major urban influences. My next single is already ready, but untitled as such ... it will be released soon!
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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