Exclusive! Poornachandra Mysore: Orchestra, Mysuru! is a tale of struggle with beautiful music

Orchestra, Mysuru! was actor Poornachandra Mysore’s first film as a leading man. The film was a passion project for a bunch of Mysurean buddies, including director Sunil Mysuru, and explored the orchestra culture in the Heritage City. Released in theatres for Sankranti, the Raghu Dixit musical, however, struggled at the box office, what with the onslaught of several big-ticket Tamil and Telugu films for the festival. Despite being a joint release by KRG Studios and actor Dhananjaya’s Daali Productions, Orchestra, Mysuru! had to bow out of theatres soon enough and landed on OTT within a fortnight.

For Poornachandra, the transition to leading man has been part of an eventful journey that started off with theatre in Mysuru, followed by supporting roles in several Kannada films. In Orchestra, Mysuru! Poorna is an aspiring singer, whose dream is to be a part of popular orchestra troupe in Mysuru. “Sunil broached the idea of doing a film on the orchestra culture, something that he has fond childhood memories of. Orchestra is seasonal, which starts around Ganesha Chaturthi and goes on till Dasara, or Kannada Rajyotsava, at the most. While we all were familiar with orchestras performing at various public events and the celebrations surrounding it, we had no idea about what the lives of the artistes were like during off season. That’s when we realized that they all have regular day jobs, which they return to full-time when the season is over. Most of them are daily-wage labourers, like autorickshaw drivers, tailors, carpenters, etc. While scripting the story of one aspiring singer, we also built the characters around him and their lives,” explains Poorna.

His character, adds Poorna, is a middle-class guy with a small-time job, who is desperate to be a part of a certain orchestra. “There are no antagonists, so to say, in this tale. Every human has a set of flaws and problems. Human nature is not like a piece of clear white paper; there are myriad colours to it. Those are the kind of stories that we have tried to explore in this film,” he says. Considering that the film is about the orchestra culture, music, of course, is of utmost importance and that’s where Raghu Dixit came in. “Sunil had met Raghu with the intention of having him play a character in the film. But after the narration, he said that he had to be involved in a larger capacity, because this was his story and that he knows all too well the struggles a musician goes through. Eventually, Raghu was not only our composer, but co-producer as well,” says Poorna.

But the beauty of the songs, he adds, is also that they have all been written by Dhananjaya. “He is an amazing poet and we’d asked him to try writing one song. It didn’t stop at that and he wrote all. The songs of Orchestra, Mysuru! are like the blood lines of the film. A lot of the narrative is well explained through his songs,” adds Poorna in praise of the Natarakshasa.

The film, says the actor, was shot in documentary style, amid the people of Mysuru, with the highlight being the climax, which was shot during an actual concert by Raghu. Although the film belongs to the rooted-story genre, Poorna adds that at its core it is actually a rags-to-riches tale that will connect with all audiences. “This was not a story that was meant to take on an extraordinary shape. We just wanted to present a story from our land; something that we’ve grown up with.”

The film is currently available on Amazon Prime Video.