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"The importance of Riyaaz - musical practice - is not only explicitly recognized in the Indian musical tradition but it is also prominently emphasized and accorded a most elevated status...Riyaaz actually embraces a wide range of ideas, from the practical and social to the ideal and spiritual."
Arun Ramamurthy (violin):
Arun is an exciting young violinist who is making his mark in the Carnatic music world and will continue to do so in the coming years. He had his initial training in Western music which gave him his precise bowing and fingering techniques. Arun studied Carnatic music from the esteemed violinist Sri Anantha Krishnan. In the last five years, Arun has been getting advanced training from Mysore Nagaraj & Mysore Manjunath in the good old "gurukula" fashion. Arun also loves experimenting with fusion music and is starting to make a name for himself in this genre of music as well. Recently, Arun performed at New York City Mayor Bloomberg's residence, Gracie Mansion.
Shrinidhi Hemmige (guitar):
Shrinidhi is the grandson of Sangeetha Vidwan Sri. S. Rajagopala Iyer. Being born in a musical family he naturally had the ear for music. He started playing the guitar during his college days which took him on a very interesting journey into the world of western classical, Hindi and Kannada movie music, rock, jazz, blues styles. One day in New Jersey, a request from a friend to play "Raghupathi Raghava" on the guitar during a half time show for a Table Tennis tournament led him to change his guitar tuning to the conventional carnatic Sa Pa Sa Pa mode and play some carnatic music. Being the biggest fan of Mandolin Shrinivas, Shrinidhi was astonished to find how the guitar could as well be used to play carnatic music similar to the Mandolin. From that day he has never looked away from Carnatic Music on the Guitar.
Ruchira Kannambille (keyboard):
Ruchira started learning western classical music on the piano at the age of 6 and continued to do so for the next 12 years. After entering college, she wanted to branch out into jazz and improvisation so she took lessons from a talented jazz pianist, Adrian Cohen, and loved the vast options that improvisation had. She also has a great love for all kinds of music and her strong knowledge of both Carnatic (South Indian) and Hindustani (North Indian) music allows her to experiment with fusion - East meets West.
Advait Shah (tabla):
Advait has been performing and producing different genres of Indian and western music since the age of 8. Advait was born with an ear for music. As a young child, he would tap his fingers to make rhythmic beats on anything that he got his hands on. Noticing a sharp sense of rhythm, his father sent him to India to learn at the Music College in Baroda India for basic tabla training. Most of Advait's knowledge thereafter was self taught by listening to countless number of recordings. He also received more advanced training from tabla maestro Ustad Tari Khan. Advait has performed with famous music icons such as Pakistani music director Nisar Bazmi, sitarist Nafiz Ali Khan, and also a variety of U.S. based singers and musicians. He has been also been experimenting with Indian classical music on the acoustic and electric guitars as well. Recently, Advait has started to sing classical and semi-classical with his main focus on ghazals and Hindustani classical.
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