Piya Sukanya

The Bombay Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s initiative towards revival of bandstand culture in the city has been gaining momentum since its beginning in February.
The weekly affair at the Hanging Gardens, Malabar Hill, where every Saturday between 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, young and talented musicians of Mumbai play their original compositions, has created quite a buzz amongst music enthusiasts in the city. The Big M is proud to be associated with this movement to bring out talented and budding musicians and give them a platform to reach a larger audience in the city.
As part of our special feature covering the ‘Revival of Bandtsand Culture’ initiative, we bring to you few of the performances held here in the month of March.
6th March ’10: As the sun set marking the beginning of a lovely Saturday evening, it was time for two hugely talented artists – Pia Sukanya and Anushka Anand to step on stage and take the eagerly awaiting crowd on a nice little musical journey. Pia Sukanya the first performer of the evening crooned compositions that everybody could relate to. Her ‘Boxes on a string’, was about moving out from her cushy apartment. ‘Just Routine’, was a memorable love song in which she sang of the simple gestures of her lover, which made her feel special.

Electro

The guy sitting next to me found her long skirt and styling to be a reminiscence of the eccentric singer Phoebe Buffay , from the popular sitcom ‘Friends’. At the mention of this, Sukanya laughs saying, “Never got that one before! I admire that character and I am a nomad too!”
I could not resist my curiosity when I saw one of the French tourists present there taking photographs of Sukanya and blushing whenever she looked his way. On my questioning Arnaud, the French guy, he said “I think Pia is a Rock Princess telling us a musical fairy tale.” He found the songs based on her personal life quite intriguing and Sukanya strikingly beautiful.
Sukanya’s songs were blended with strumming of guitar strings by Sanjoy Das. What distinguished this guitarist was the fact that he could play Raag Jhanjat on his Spanish guitar during one of Sukanya’s songs. Had I not seen him play it myself, I would have assumed it to be a Sitar playing the raag. It was indeed a rare feat. On enquiring Das informed me that his guitar wasn’t one of those ordinary assembly line ones, but made exclusively from the wood of North American forests, hand-crafted at Mexico.

A Sploosh of Acoustics

Rahul Pandey

After Sukanya, came an equally talented Anushka Anand a member of the band ‘Noush like sploosh’, accompanied with acoustics. She could play her Banjo, blow through the harmonica and sing at the same time, just like Jim Carey’s character from the movie ‘Mask’. The tall, lanky and chic singer swooned the audience with her catchy numbers.
There was an elderly gentleman who was wheelchair bound, yet he and his wife found the performances at Bandstand pleasant enough to come there every week from Tardeo. The gentleman said that it reminded him of his heydays; when Pt. Ravi Shankar carried out recitals early in the morning at The Gateway of India.
27th March ’10: Two weeks later, on March 27th, rock band ‘Coshish’ added to the now lengthy list of artists performing at this venue, as it gave the crowd a taste of some Hindi rock. Though, a fair amount of credit for getting the crowd in the groove also goes to the cheer-leaders who the band had brought along. Well, don’t get too excited. The cheer-leaders here are not the ‘short skirt babe’ type; but, a bunch of ‘Coshish’ fans who follow the band wherever it performs.
“I call them the Coshish Brigade”, corrects Mangesh Gandhi, the lead singer of the band. “Your readers can also follow us on Myspace for videos and Facebook for updates and joining the Coshish Brigade” he adds enthusiastically.

Coshish

“You spell ‘cool’ with a ‘c’ and hence ‘Coshish’ is with a ‘c’ as we are so cool!” Gandhi added explaining the detour from the conventional spelling.
In the rest of the departments the band is pretty conventional, delivering what you expect. A bunch of four long haired guys: Srikant Srinivasan (lead guitar), Anish Nair (bass guitar) joined by Humza Kazi (drums) and Gandhi (lead singer) to whom you have already been introduced.
During the performance, the band was joined by Kaushik Ramchandran, a self-trained classical singer from ‘Paradigm Shift’, a Mumbai based band. The alaaps of Ramchandran blended well with the sound of Coshish and the crowd loved every bit of it.
It seemed that the quick thinking and on-stage improvisations succeeded in connecting with the crowd. And this is probably what made the band a choice of Radio-Mirchi. Yes guys, the band got an opportunity to perform on this stage after crossing Radio Mirchi’s battleground.
So, next Saturday, if you feel the need to unwind and soak yourself in some great original music, feel welcome to take a walk at Hanging Gardens.

What is in it for The Big M readers?

Well, if you always felt that you had the talent which can be appreciated beyond the four walls of your bathroom too. Then here is your chance to do the dance, I mean song. Call up Kavita Sharma, 022-22693896 or mail her at ks@bombaychamber.com, and get a chance to do a ten minutes opening act next Saturday or perform in the Grand Finale.

Article by Kirti Tarang

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Berklee's distinguished faculty from Massachusetts was in Mumbai sharing their profound knowledge with Mumbai's budding musicians.

The Berklee College of Music based in Boston, Massachusetts has always been regarded as the premier institute specializing in music education in North America. Starting off as a school for jazz in the mid 40’s, Berklee soon adopted more diverse genres ranging from rock to bluegrass and even hip hop.

Study of theory as well as a practical approach to music combined with teachings on the working of the music industry provided its students with an unrivaled array of skills resulting in multiple honors over the coming years.

Providing degree courses in composition, film scoring, music business/management, music production and songwriting, the college has earned a noteworthy alumni consisting of greats such as Duke Ellington, guitarists Bill Frisell, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and renowned producer Quincy Jones.

With two record labels and a radio station in its arsenal, the celebrated institute soon spread its wings to students of different nationalities, visiting countries around the world conducting clinics and auditions for interested musicians. Collaboration with Tabula Rasa music and Furtados brought this tour to Jamnabai Narsee School from the 13^th to the 16^th of February and along with it an army of Mumbai musicians looking to learn from workshops headed by some of the most distinguished personnel of the college.

Mock auditions along with a presentation carried out by Gojko Damjanic, the Assistant Director of International Admissions, provided young musicians from the city a relative idea on tackling future opportunities in their musical careers.

Day one of the program’s visit to India began bright and early, with sessions on how to approach auditions, first for rhythm instruments and later for melody instruments and vocals. These mock auditions along with a presentation carried out by Gojko Damjanic, the Assistant Director of International Admissions, provided young musicians from the city a relative idea on tackling future opportunities in their musical career.  A simple and down to earth explanation of the processes by teachers well versed in the matter provided those in attendance with substantial information.

The second day of clinics was hosted by what is commonly referred to as the ‘Dream Team’ of Berklee College including the likes of Assistant Vice President of International programs, Greg Badolato. An accomplished Broadway saxophonist in his own right, he presented a session on using traditional, western solfege techniques to develop the performer’s ear and assist with developing improvisation vocabulary. Accompanying Greg was Dan Carlin, Chair of Berklee’s film scoring department who in his sessions, demonstrated the entertainment industry’s increasingly rapid evolution of scoring styles, techniques, and applications in movies and video games. Following was Michael Farquharson presenting a session analyzing the use of modes in current pop music and at the same time demonstrating the use of modal harmony in original compositions.

A simple and down to earth explanation of the processes by teachers well versed in the matter provided those in attendance with substantial information.

Emmy award winning Carlin and Juno award recipient Farquharson along with Director of International Programs Jason Camelio certainly possessed the required credentials and convincingly provided the Mumbai audience with a lifetime’s worth of experience while grooming a new generation of talented, credible Indian musicians.

- Berklee was founded by Lawrence Berk, an engineer trained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and veteran arranger with the CBS and NBC radio orchestras.

- It was founded on the revolutionary principle that the best way to prepare students for careers in music is through the study and practice of contemporary music.

- With more than a dozen performance and nonperformance majors, a diverse and talented student body representing more than 70 countries, Berklee is the world’s premier learning lab for the music of today and tomorrow.

- 68 Berklee alumni have received 184 Grammy Awards, including Donald Fagen ‘66 of Steely Dan, Diana Krall ‘83, and Steve Vai ‘79

- 15 Berklee alumni have received 40 Latin Grammy Awards

- The composer of Simpsons, Alf Clausen ‘66 who won the Emmy in ‘97, ‘98 was a student of Berklee

- Howard Shore ‘69 won Latin Grammy awards for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2004) & The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002)

Article By Shikher Chaudhary

Images Courtesy: Jack Thomas, Performers Collective School of Music

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The BEP Trio - (From left to right) Sudeip Nair, Pramod Sippy & Kenneth Lobo

It’s the classic story of 3 college friends reuniting years later reminiscing about the past and making big unrealistic plans for the future. Except this time after a series of extremely fortunate events, that plan did materialise.  The college was St Xaviers, the ‘plan’ was Bombay Elektrik Projekt and its 3 founders Sudeip Nair, Pramod Sippy and Kenneth Lobo. Sudeip dropped his career in the hotel industry and Kenneth quit his job as a journalist and joined Pramod (who is a DJ) to promote and showcase local talent of Mumbai and India. In the beginning the sole purpose was to do away with run of the mill, commercial music and introduce the people of Mumbai to new and revolutionary sound. But today they’ve branched out into a whole new bunch of activities.

The Bombay Elecktrik Project

Poetry
To fill the gaping hole in art and culture in the city, Bombay Elektrik Projekt introduced Poetry nights. Even though at that time there were a few similar events around the town, this one would be different. There were no timelines or language barriers, just simple informal Poetry. On the first night, just 1 poet turned up, but this didn’t make a difference to them. They kept having poetry nights and steadily more and more people showed up. On the anniversary night, about a month ago, there were almost 30 people who read out their poetry.

Experimental Short Films

Bombay Elektrik Projekt also dipped their fingers into short films. This being a neglected side of cinema, they focused on promoting short films and organizing screenings. On the success of short film screenings in Mumbai they introduced the same in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Cochin.

Music

Another profession of the Bombay Elektrik Projekt is ‘music curator’ so to speak. They provide sound for a number of venues like Wink, Bonobo etc.

The Mavyns at UTV World Movies Nite

Stand up comedy

Bombay Elektrik Projekt is a big fan and therefore promoter of Stand up comedy, be it English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil or any other regional language. You’d be surprised to see how many stand up comedians are among us.

Bombay Elektrik Projekt has had workshops at St Xaviers’ college festival ‘Malhar’ which was an extremely enriching experience since all 3 of them are ex students of this college. Even though they’ve been in business for only over a year, they’ve

Seatlle Sound Tribute at the launch of KIR-Helium Project

already promoted over 150 DJs and artists. In the future they plan on diving into the world of music production, setting up their own record label, opening up their own performance bar or pub and launching their very own publication. Very soon they’ll host their first ‘show and tell’ night, where travellers get together and share pictures and experiences of the world.

The BEP trio can be reached at more@bombayelektrik.com. So whatever your talent is, however off beat just get in touch with Sudeip, Pramod or Kenneth and they’ll fit you right into the place you deserve.

Images Courtesy: BEP

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'Sound' gives us a medium of expression and it works remarkably with children.

Besides being a vital part of our national and global culture, MUSIC helps build relationships between individuals and facilitates growth and development. “Music Basti” program with children at risk, is the reflection of this belief in the power of music to personally understand and access the world. ‘Sound’ gives us a medium of expression and it works remarkably with children. Appreciating music and its various forms and expressions can help children develop skills and progressive attitudes and enjoy their education and schooling experience. It all started back in 2008 by Integrated Development Education Association (IDEA), supported by The YP Foundation and Aman Biradari.

Music Basti uses music as a tool of self empowerment and enables children to enjoy their basic childhood; just the way they deserve it.

By definition ‘street children’ are the ones who live on the streets because they are homeless and hence without any sort of adult supervision. They spend most of their time with other children in a similar predicament who also lack direction and support. Being constantly on the move, these children have no sense of security and stability. Some of them have been abandoned or orphaned and many are victims of various forms of abuse like sexual, physical or emotional.

‘Music Basti’ came up to help these children and to give them a platform to express themselves through music and thus help their overall development. It aims at generating social and cultural awareness about the problems faced by these children through the universal language of Music. It uses music as a tool of self empowerment and enables children to enjoy their childhood: just the way they deserve it. With these basic goals and principles, Music Basti began its activities in Delhi and served as a link between the music community in Delhi and Street Children at risk.

Today, the organization has trained more than 50 musicians and has over 100 volunteers involved in their activities.

Music Basti identifies young talented musicians and volunteers, trains and motivates them, and gives them an opportunity to learn and perform music as well as trains them around human rights and child rights issues. Organizing workshops is a regular activity and the program has also documented a few short films. Concerts held by Music Basti not only showcase art and photography by the children, but the program has also been supported by exclusive performances by popular bands like Advaita. Music Basti was selected for Change Looms DAC (Ashoka & Pravah) and VIKALP (UNESCO, The YP Foundation and UNFPA) in 2008, as well as Unconvention Mumbai (British Council and OML). Music Basti has organized performances at iCONGO Karamveer Puraskaar award ceremony and CRY’s program “Sabko Shiksha, Samaan Shiksha” this year, and “Being a Child” on 14th November 2009, celebrating Children’s Day with 200 children along with performances by bands including Advaita, Vedanta, Astitva and others.

Today, the organization has trained more than 5o musicians and has over 100 volunteers involved in their activities. You can be a part of this change too. This is a hands on project that requires funding and volunteers. The only thing really required is to step forward and do something. Please contact Music Basti today if you would like to assist either financially or personally. Email: musicbasti@gmail.com

Article by Divya Srinivasan
Image Courtesy: Shiv Ahuja and Sabhaney

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