Honorary President A.R. Rahman
The Trinity Laban Honorary Presidency is the highest honour that we can bestow upon an individual. Our President acts as a figurehead, an emblem of excellence to whose success our students can aspire, and an ambassadorial representative for us and our core values across the globe. Previous Trinity Laban presidents include conductor Sir Charles Mackerras and violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin.
Our vision at Trinity Laban is for excellence beyond tradition; we strive to lead the arts beyond convention, to make change and to break expectations. Our new President is the living embodiment of that vision.
A.R. Rahman is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, educator, producer, philanthropist and global arts leader. He is widely credited with redefining contemporary Indian music by seamlessly blending Eastern classical, electronic, and symphonic arrangements. His music traverses different musical styles, traditions, and genres from Bollywood and Kollywood to Hollywood, musical theatre to symphony orchestra. He has been recognised internationally with two Academy Awards, two GRAMMYs, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. In 2010 he was bestowed the Padma Bhushan by the Indian Government.
In the West, A.R. Rahman’s highest profile work includes the Oscar-winning score for Slumdog Millionaire with accompanying hit song and collaboration with The Pussycat Dolls ‘Jai Ho’. Further collaborations with the film’s director Danny Boyle include scoring 127 Hours and a new song as part of 2012’s London Olympic Games. Thrillingly, a stage musical version of Slumdog Millionaire is in the works for the coming years, which follows on from Rahman’s successful collaboration with Lord Andew Lloyd Webber on Bombay Dreams and his work on the stage musical version of Lord of the Rings. Truly, Rahman’s work defies genre, and he is as comfortable writing large scale orchestral works as he is producing electronic music. He has performed world tours including Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, USA, India and the UK.
As a humanitarian philanthropist Rahman served as UN Ambassador for the 2015 Millenium Development Goals. He has released many songs to fundraise for projects including the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, The Banyan project for underserved women in Chennai, and the Save Lightman Fund for technical workers of the Indian film industry. In 2006, alongside his mother Kareema Begum, Rahman founded the A.R. Rahman Foundation, which seeks to empower underprivileged young people by providing them with world class music education.
One part of the Foundation’s work is the 2008 formation of the Sunshine Orchestra, which provides free musical training to socially and economically disadvantaged children. Once equipped with the requisite skills and confidence, participants are encouraged to explore opportunities and build a career in music, as teachers or as performers. Participants get a better understanding of their own and other cultural identities through the exploration of Indian & Western musical traditions. They benefit from the exposure to global cultural trends through their interactions with eminent international musicians and learning from them. Since its inception, the foundation has trained over 100 students. The students are taught by expert faculty in orchestral instrument, in an effort to empower them with life skills and provide them with a viable future career within the creative industries.
In 2008 Rahman established KM Music Conservatory in his home town Chennai to provide students with a strong artistic, intellectual and technical foundation for pursuing professional careers in music, through a learning environment that provides education in all aspects of music and music technology. K M is the first institution of its kind in India. Programmes are pedagogically designed to inspire as well as to foster a cultural exchange between students and teachers creating a global ethos for all who have the passion to learn. Following many years of close collaboration and exchange, in 2024 Trinity Laban signed a partnership agreement with KMMC that will lead to their students being able to split their studies between Chennai and London.
In 2009, A.R. Rahman was given an Honorary Fellowship by our sister organisation Trinity College London, having trained in Western classical music via the examinations that have their roots in our conservatoire. He has also been conferred with honorary doctorates from Aligarh Muslim University, Anna University, Middlesex University, Miami University, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Berklee College of Music. He was recently ambassador for the British Council’s India/UK Together Season of Culture.