AR Rahman, Kamal Haasan and a host of singers team up for fundraising concert

Singers of Tamil cinema are collaborating with AR Rahman and Kamal Haasan for a six-hour-long global concert titled Oru Kuralaai to raise funds for artists who have lost their livelihood because of the pandemic and the lockdown. The virtual show, which will bring together more than 80 artists, will be live-streamed via Facebook tomorrow, September 12.

"When I saw a video of an artist saying that because of a lack of shows, there's no way to sustain for him and hence he's resorting to other menial jobs, it hit me personally and hurt me. These are people who have relied on kovil kutcheris and are now helpless with no one to give them a hand including the government," says singer Srinivas who founded the United Singers Charitable Trust (USCT), a nonprofit organisation that was formed along with trustees such as Ranjith Govind, Haricharan, Sujatha Mohan, Rahul Nambiar, Unnikrishnan, and Saindhavi.

"We created a trust because we can only give from it and not take. For this concert, we invited every singer we know and surprisingly, they all gave their nods without a fuss. The sheer talent of Tamil singers is so much that I am sure that it will be a phenomenal show," adds Srinivas, who says that as artists they didn't know how to monetise the idea and Silver Tree event management came into the picture to handle the operations. "Both Kamal and AR Rahman have performed in the show and I would like to keep it as a surprise on what they actually do. The rest of the show will be a mix of recorded and live performance."

"The audience will have the option to donate during the live show, We have a google sheet full of beneficiaries for whom we'll collect Aadhaar card information and find out their state. If they're genuinely in need, a part of the donation will reach them," says Srinivas. 

The list of singers that are to participate in the concert are Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, Shreya Goshal, Suchitra, Mano, Sujatha, Unnikrishnan, Anuradha, Sadhana Sargam, Vijayaprakash, Rajesh Vaidhya, Chitra, Karthik, Naresh Iyer, Rahul Nambiar, Aalap Raju, Swetha Mohan and Vijay Yesudas.