From Assam to Abbey Road: How this Indian musician is taking his unique talent across the world

Meeting musician Joi Barua in his studio means you get to listen to music he is currently making tracks hersquos listening to on loop and chatter about life and its philosophiesLast week we caught up with the artiste for a very special update His voice and melodies are part of Cosmic Rhapsody the second part of The Lim Trilogy a threepart musical and visual storytelling project which explores companionship space and the origins of matter through music animation and scienceThe project spearheaded by Dr Susan Lim who in her medical career spanning over 30 years pioneered liver transplantation in Asia comprises songs animation and concertos such as Fantasy of Companionship 2021 Cosmic Rhapsody 2026 and Symphony of Oceans unreleasedDr Susan LimThe song in Cosmic Rhapsody titled Star among the Cosmic Clouds is about a star that is going down Barua composed this song to Dr Limrsquos lyrics after his fatherrsquos death ldquoI wrote it in Assam sitting at my fatherrsquos desk It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestrardquo he tells usThe first part of the trilogy focuses on companionship and loneliness ldquoAs people become increasingly isolated it asks Can we live a life with artificial companions The story follows ALAN an AIembodied plush inanimate who enters the life of its human companion Christinardquo Dr Lim tells us Cosmic Rhapsody sees the partnership of human and inanimate set out to space driven by environmental challenges on Earth in search of solutions in cosmic dust that may help save the planet ldquoIn this fictional narrative they encounter an exploding star a supernova yielding purple cosmic dust that falls back to Earth as confetti soaking up the CO2 and impurities narrated through the song Confetti Stormrdquo Lim saysldquoI think every complicated story can also be told simply If it cannot be told simply it means you havenrsquot understood it I call this project The Ark of ALAN Susan has built an entire universe with various talents from around the worldrdquo Joi addsAhead of the Space Week on October 2 the song Teleportation from the finale of LIM I recorded at Abbey Road in April with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra celebrating quantum entanglement was also released in two versions one main English version by Britainrsquos Got Talent superstar Tom Ball and a separate version in Assamese by Barua who composed the song to Susanrsquos lyricsThe news only gets bigger Cosmic Rhapsody celebrates its North American Premiere at the Hollywood Bowl in July 2027 a month apart from NASArsquos COSI mission to board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in August 2027 led by Principal Investigator John TomsickLast year Lim and her team presented Cosmic Rhapsody to the leadership of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley ldquoThe screening revealed how intimately the musical story of star evolution aligned with the upcoming NASA mission Human striving drives both the imagination of scientists to build instruments capable of peering across lightyears and artistes to create works that stirs human spiritrdquo Dr Susan Lim told us via emailThe mission will study the gammaray sky to trace the radioactive glow of stellar explosions and map where the elements of the periodic table are forged across our galaxy ldquoThe iron in our blood calcium in our bones and magnesium in our cells were all forged in stellar furnacesrdquo says Dr Lim adding ldquoWe are quite literally stardustrdquoDr Lim met Barua at an INK Conference in Singapore where she spoke on the frontiers in medicine She heard Barua present Rhaba an Assamese song inspired by the story of Assamese revolutionary and cultural icon Bishnu Prasad Rabha created in collaboration with American saxophonist George Brooks and knew she wanted to work with him ldquoWhile working on the songs I realised that every bit of that endeavour is aimed at trying to find a solution And then that whole endeavour requires a bigger purpose Itrsquos a privilege to be part of thisrdquo says Barua adding that Mumbai and Bollywood gave his career a platformldquoWhen you make music for movies it has a commercial goal post but when you do your own music it feels personal and their collective purpose I will continue doing good projects and people will find merdquo says Barua who has been associated with Bollywood projects including Dev D Udaan and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara ldquoThe ultimate message we leave with viewers is that no matter how far we push into artificial intelligence synthetic biology or deepspace exploration empathy and love remain the universal currencyrdquo Lim signs off