This city is a muse for many international musicians, which  has resulted in indie bands like  London’s Bombay Bicycle Club,  and songs called “Bombay” by  Spanish pop singer El Guincho  and American hip hop artist  Timbaland. The latest musician  to be inspired by the city – more  precisely, the 2008 terrorist  attack – is American avant garde  composer Evan Ziporyn, perhaps  best known as the clarinettist and  saxophonist in the New York Citybased  group Bang on a Can and for  founding the MIT’s Gamelan Galak  Tika ensemble. 

Together with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project,  conductor Gil Rose and tabla  player Sandeep Das, Ziporyn has  recorded a three-part concerto.  “Mumbai: I” is a nearly 18-minute long meditative composition. Percussion, especially Das’s  tabla, features prominently on  “Mumbai: II”, which could be the soundtrack to the chase the  terrorists gave the local police.  “Mumbai: III” swells with plaintive  strings, haunting gongs and rests on a more faint tabla rhythm, as if  to paint a picture of the aftermath. 

In an email interview with Time Out, Ziporyn told Aditya Kundalkar about his connection with Mumbai and why it took four years to  release this composition. 

How did the attacks influence  your composition of “Mumbai”? 
When the attacks happened I was  simply concerned and riveted –  and as it happened I was emailing  back and forth to friends in India,  including Sandeep in Delhi. I knew  pretty quickly this was  what the piece had to  be about. Artists need  to live in the real world,  and art needs to concern  itself with what’s actually  happening. The second  movement depicts the  texture of that day – taking that  cathartic violence and turning it  into something both beautiful and  terrifying. 

How did you meet Sandeep Das? 
Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble [with whom Das has worked] approached me in 2005,  asking for a piece that would  feature Sandeep. We met and felt an immediate rapport, and he and  the group have now performed  that piece – “Sulvasutra” – many many times. For the next step  we wanted to do something on  a larger scale, and the idea of a  concerto seemed right. So it was  an arranged marriage – but also  love at first sight. 

It’s been four years since the  attacks. Why did it take so long? 
It’s the art production line, we  had to find an orchestra to take  it on, find funding, coordinate  schedules, etc. I also had an opera  to complete... after which it took  me close to a year to  compose it and get it  right. Then the premiere  date was postponed  for financial reasons,  and another six months  passed. Then mixing and  editing, etc – it’s actually  fairly fast for the classical world.  Hopefully the music is still of some  relevance. 

Has it been performed live? 
It was performed exactly once,  the day before the recording, in  the same location – Boston’s  Jordan Hall. Needless to say we  hope that’s the first of many – but  orchestras are generally very  conservative. The group that  commissioned the piece, the  Boston Modern Orchestra Project,  is very visionary – we’re hopeful  others will follow in their footsteps. 

What is your personal connection  to Mumbai? 
I’ve never been to India at all. I am dying to get there! I’ve spent  much of my adult life abroad – studying in Indonesia and touring  with Bang on a Can – but it just  hasn’t happened. I’m hopeful this will change soon. My connection is simply being part of this increasingly interconnected world. 9/11, the Bali Bombings, Mumbai – all these attacks have  one thing in common, they are all designed to keep us apart. It’s important to not let that stop us  from reaching out to each other. 

Big Grenadilla; Mumbai is available  on iTunes for $9.99.