Global Indianstory Global Indian ExclusiveSooryagayathri: The Carnatic prodigy shining as the star of spiritual music

Sooryagayathri: The Carnatic prodigy shining as the star of spiritual music

Written by: Amrita Priya

(October 21, 2023) Her inaugural US concert in San Jose last month was sold out even before the young Carnatic singer Sooryagayathri had boarded the flight for her 22-city US tour between September 9th and October 23rd 2023. The 17-year-old mesmerised classical music enthusiasts with her luminous voice in places like Portland, Sacramento, Dallas, Memphis, Boston, Seattle, Detroit, Raleigh, Greensboro, Hartford, Chicago, and Washington to name a few.

A few days ago, in a packed hall in Atlanta, Sooryagayathri infused a sense of divinity with her ethereal rendition of bhajans and kirtans during the devotional concert. The Gandhi Foundation of USA honoured her with ‘The Young Ambassador of Peace and Ahimsa Award’ in recognition of her outstanding performance of soulful renditions that enhanced the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr’s teachings of peace and non-violence.

Sooryagayathri

“Receiving an abundance of love and support from people all over the USA. Thank you all for turning up in big numbers for all the programmes,” the gifted artist shared on social media during the tour.

Performing tirelessly across 22 cities throughout the USA, the young artist graciously fulfilled numerous audience requests with a smile, showing no signs of the strain of her whirlwind tour.

Touching chords globally

Apart from stage performances in India and abroad, in places like Singapore, Bahrain, and now USA, the teen Carnatic singer sings for famous music labels like Times Music, Strumm Spiritual, Ishtar Devotional and Strings of Pebble Productions. Owing to her effervescent talent, Sooryagayathri often gets compared to none other than the music legend, M.S. Subbulakshmi.

Her YouTube channel has amassed an impressive 374,000 subscribers through which she has captured the hearts of the music lovers spread across the globe. During her ongoing US tour, Sooryagayathri even managed to host a live FB session for her followers because it was a special occasion. “We are happy to announce that our first original composition – Gopigopalam has crossed the 10 million views mark,” she shared with her fans.

“In a digital landscape filled with content, hitting the 10 million views mark is an extraordinary testament to the power of creativity, connection, and the ability to capture the hearts and minds of a vast online audience. And doing this with an original composition can be a challenging but rewarding journey,” she added.

Three years back, Sooryagayathri had sung the song Gopigopalam with her friends, and had uploaded it on her channel. The theme of the song revolved around a ‘musical celebration with Gopis playing with their Krishna’. It was the first attempt at a group song by the artist which was also sung by her friends, Gatha, Ganga, Hridya, and Anugraha. The five girls appeared in the artistically shot video, which has been viral ever since it was uploaded on YouTube.

The Carnatic prodigy

When Sooryagayathri was just nine years old, Kuldeep M. Pai, a Carnatic singer and independent music composer from Bengaluru who was creating caller tunes for mobile companies, used her voice for a rendition of the Hanuman Chalisa. Following the recording of the Hanuman Chalisa, Pai uploaded the song, along with a short video featuring still photos of Sooryagayathri in his studio and a few Lord Hanuman images. This release, along with her performances of ‘Ganesha Pancharatnam’, ‘Vishnu Sahasranama’, ‘Annamacharya Keerthans’, and ‘Vaishnava Jana’ – renditions that were famously performed by MS Subbulakshmi, marked the beginning of Soooryagayathri’s rise to stardom.

Sooryagayathri

“With faith, discipline and selfless devotion, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve,” remarked the star singer during this year’s launch of ‘Namaskaratha Shiv Mantra’ by Times Music.”

Making traditional music relevant to youth

The teenage artist is determined to broaden her audience beyond just the older generation who appreciate Carnatic music. To bring this traditional genre into the modern era and captivate today’s youth, she introduced her live band, ‘Sooryagayathri – The Band,’ in June. This ensemble combines both traditional and contemporary instruments, featuring a talented team of artists.

“Team Sooryagayathri presents a devotional fusion band with a modern touch for our newer generation audience,” she shared. “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything and to combine all these together, our band will take you to a divine spiritual musical journey in coming months,” remarked Sooryagayathri.

From Kerala’s village to global stage

Soorygayathri, a native of Purameri in Kerala, comes from a family of artistic talent. Her father, P.V. Anil Kumar, is a highly skilled Mridangam artist in Kerala, while her mother, P.K. Divya, is a gifted poetess with a natural flair for words.

When Sooryagayathri was merely three, her innate aptitude for pitch and rhythm became evident, prompting her parents to introduce her to formal music lessons. In fact, her father became her first teacher. She received formal training in Carnatic music under the expert guidance of her gurus, S. Anandi and Nishant Nadapuram.

In addition to her classical vocal training, Sooryagayathri is also mastering the Veena under the tutelage of Ramana Balachandran, with the fundamentals initially imparted by Krishnendu G. She also practices Mridangam alongside her father.

Sooryagayathri during a performance

Despite her absolute commitment to music, Sooryagayathri remains dedicated to her studies. This year she excelled in her class 12 exams, scoring 100 percent in Sanskrit, and excellent marks in all other subjects. With a packed schedule of performances throughout the year, the Carnatic star never neglects her studies, and even utilises her time on flights to catch-up with her academics.

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Published on 21, Oct 2023

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Little Miss Sunshine: Teen invents ‘solar cycle’ as a cost-effective irrigation solution

(May 29, 2022) Working on a Miyawaki forest plantation drive near Kommasandra Lake in Bengaluru, 16-year-old Rachanaa Bodugu realised she had been mistaken in thinking farmers have an easy job. There’s usually no electricity during the day, for starters, which means pumping water into the fields is a challenge. “Electricity is mostly available in the night time and farmers struggle to irrigate their crops,” says the teen, who is a class 11 student at Indus International School. A little digging showed that agricultural processes are not water-efficient, leading to sky-high energy bills for farmers. “Irrigation by manual methods is very laborious,” Rachanaa tells Global Indian. “I was compelled to come up with a solution.” [caption id="attachment_17286" align="aligncenter" width="613"] Rachanaa Bodugu[/caption] Eco-friendly solution “It is a step towards sustainability and effectiveness of farmers,” Rachanaa remarks, adding, “during the plantation of 2,000 plants for Miyawaki forest, I realised how much manual labour goes into watering the plants.” She started researching ways to water plants more efficiently. Trawling through the internet, she hit upon an idea, and backed every step of her innovation with reliable research. It is an unusual model that the teen came up with – a three-wheel cycle that runs

agraph">“It is a step towards sustainability and effectiveness of farmers,” Rachanaa remarks, adding, “during the plantation of 2,000 plants for Miyawaki forest, I realised how much manual labour goes into watering the plants.” She started researching ways to water plants more efficiently. Trawling through the internet, she hit upon an idea, and backed every step of her innovation with reliable research. It is an unusual model that the teen came up with – a three-wheel cycle that runs on solar panels. Once the design was ready, she fine-tuned the idea with her mentor, Anand Malligavad, under whose guidance she had been working to rejuvenate Kommasandra Lake and reviving the fauna around its lakebed.

[caption id="attachment_17287" align="aligncenter" width="798"] Rachanaa giving finishing touches to her innovation - the solar cycle[/caption]

Her mentor, Anand, is a mechanical engineer and a lake conservationist – well qualified to give Rachanaa the feedback she needed. Her cycle is fitted with a drum, a pump and has solar panels installed on top. It doesn’t require fossil fuel to run and can pump water from a nearby source. “Madhusudhan, an acquaintance, helped me with the solar panels,” says Rachanaa. Using funds provided by her parents, the teen set to work on a cost-effective prototype.

“The protype has been tested successfully and I am hopeful for CSR funds so that more and more farmers can be helped,” she tells.

Finding the path

Spending about four months in lake rejuvenation and revival of fauna around it sparked Rachanaa’s mind with great insights. “I was intrigued by Anand sir’s initiatives of lake revival, and joined him out of curiosity,” She went expecting a laidback cleaning drive but was impressed to find the team using highly scientific methods. “Those few months spent making a difference around Kommasandra Lake were a great learning opportunity,” she smiles.

[caption id="attachment_17288" align="aligncenter" width="747"] Kommasandra Lake in Bengaluru[/caption]

Triggered by her own hardships, her vision to help farmers in and around Bengaluru is commendable, given her age. "My innovation would make life not only less laborious but more convenient for them as they would not feel compelled to work at night when electricity is available, losing their sleep and making themselves prone to injuries in the dark," she believes.

[caption id="attachment_17290" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Rachanaa with her mentor, water conservationist, Anand Malligavad[/caption]

Rachanaa finds inspiration in Anand, whose work fills her with desire to be of more help to the people at large. “He has been impressively rejuvenating so many lakes in such a short time and that too without spending much money,” says the youngster, who aspires to be an entrepreneur and remain attached to the cause of saving the environment. She also loves spending time with her parents Sudhakar and Geeta and her brother, Krishna, as well as painting, sculpting, watching YouTube and Netflix.

Follow Rachanaa Bodugu on Instagram

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Navvye Anand: Helping save endangered Kangri language through AI

(March 17, 2024) In the scenic mountains of Himachal Pradesh is a river valley - Kangra - home to warm Himachali people who cherish their language and customs. The beautiful language extends its influence to Northern Punjab - where Delhi teen Navvye Anand has his familial roots. Though his family settled in Delhi, his connection to his culture and heritage remains strong through the Kangri language. Upon discovering that Kangri language was among UNESCO's list of 10 endangered languages, he felt called to take action. "I started to look for ways to revitalise the language, and focused primarily on leveraging the oral medium. Recognising the dearth of written literature in Kangri, I turned to ASR (Automated Speech Recognition) - which converts human speech into written text," he tells Global Indian. [caption id="attachment_36635" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Navvye Anand[/caption] Traditionally, linguistics would spend hours engaging with local people to manually transcribe oral traditions, often encountering bottlenecks due to the enormous amount of time and effort required, along with scope for human error. "ASR can be used to streamline the transcription process. Recent advancements in AI made it possible to use ASR at a much higher level than before," adds Navvye, whose project, Cross-Lingual

bottlenecks due to the enormous amount of time and effort required, along with scope for human error. "ASR can be used to streamline the transcription process. Recent advancements in AI made it possible to use ASR at a much higher level than before," adds Navvye, whose project, Cross-Lingual Automatic Speech Recognition for Endangered Languages won him The Spirit of Ramanujan Grant, worth $4800. Each year, the University of Virginia and the Templeton World Charity Organization jointly award a grant to high school students who demonstrate exceptional talent in mathematics and science.

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With the grant, Navvye attended the Wolfram High School Summer Program in the US. "I learnt from Dr Steven Wolfram, who is a pioneering computer scientist and a linguist, and I had the opportunity to refine my linguistic abilities and learn more about linguistics," says the teen, who also attended Euler Circle Program on number theory. "I used the grant to support my education."

Love for words and languages

Growing up with a grandfather who was a polyglot fluent in seven languages, Navvye was attracted to words and languages like a moth to flame. "My love for languages is inherited, it played a crucial role in my upbringing," says the teen, adding, "We bonded over our common love for language, and every time I found a new Pandora's box in an unknown language, I'd walk up to him and discuss. I loved talking about languages with him. We'd often fixate upon certain peculiarities of a language - such as resemblance between shakkar (jaggery) - an Urdu word and sugar in English. My love for linguistics was innately embedded in me."

After his grandfather passed away in 2022, Navvye decided to pay him homage by working towards revitalising a dialect of his native language. Moreover, his visit to the Kangra Valley region in 2018 made him fall in love with the warmth of the people. "They always had some folklore or a story to tell and were proud of their culture and heritage. I thought it was paradoxical that Kangri was an endangered language because these people love their culture and heritage. I thought if I could unite their love with advancements in AI, then that would be a great project to start," he reveals.

Using AI to preserve Kangri

This led him to read papers from past researchers who had used ASR for other languages. One particularly intriguing study was by Emily Prud'hommeaux, an assistant professor at Boston College, who attempted to revitalise Seneca - an endangered language in the US. "Her research papers helped me understand the methodology and how researchers use ASR." Later, he reached out to Dr Shweta Chauhan, a researcher at the National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, who had curated a text corpus for the Kangri language. "She invited me to intern at her lab, and ever since she has been an invaluable mentor."

The innovation in ASR allows linguists to record conversations in their natural environment and to capture their essence without manually digitising any oral medium. Explaining the process, Navvye elaborates that a regular mic can be fed into the ASR model which helps give an accurate transcription. The audio is being converted into text via ASR. "Currently, the accuracy stands at 85 percent, and over time, my aim is to gather additional data and enhance the system to achieve a target accuracy of 95 percent." The project operates on two fronts - one, where Navvye personally collects data by recording conversations using ASR, and second, where he connects with local translators who send audio transcriptions to him using ASR. "This allows me to build a robust audio repertoire. Additionally, I'm partnering with the Indian government through their Bhashini program, leveraging their resources to collect more Kangri data. I'm looking forward to expanding the audio repertoire as it will provide vast dataset to further fine-tune the model with improved accuracy."

When Navvye started he was only 15, but his passion to translate his dream into reality kept him going along with the support of his parents and the people of Kangra. However, along the way he encountered some technical hiccups in his journey, primarily related to data collection, cleaning, model selection and fine-tuning. "After experimenting with other models, I settled for Open AI's Whisper, which is the state-of-the-art speech recognition model. It is difficult to bring a simple idea to fruition but when the cause is noble, people will support you," he adds.

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Creating an impact

In the last two years, Navvye's work has empowered various translators by connecting them to MNCs operating in the Kangri domain. "I've helped a couple of translators gather the requisite information to contact Lenovo, created their LinkedIn profile, and filled out technical documents for them," says Navvye, who is also creating awareness about the importance of the Kangri language among school children. Ask him the potential reason behind Kangri being an endangered language, he promptly replies, "More people are now speaking Hindi as compared to Kangri as they are dissuaded from speaking their native dialect due to globalisation. It's not considered cool enough - something we need to counter," says the teen.

Proud to be preserving his ancestor's fading language, Navvye says the fruit of labour has been immense but the job isn't finished yet. "There is a long way to go but I'm happy with the way it's been going. I'm honoured to join the efforts to the preservation of my language which is a rich amalgamation of history and discourse," adds Navvye. As he plans to join the California Institute of Technology this fall, he wants to stay committed to the project, confident in his ability to utilise the power of technology to further work towards the project remotely. "I will have a proper support system to enhance my knowledge. I already have a new idea about classifying dialects using embeddings which can help clusters different dialects and identify them," reveals Navvye, adding that it can be used as a model for other languages.

Imparting advice to fellow teenagers, Navvye asks them to stop being afraid of taking the leap of faith. "Being afraid of failure is a sign of failure itself," he says, adding, "Don't worry if it will work out or not, you will find your way. In case, it doesn't work out, you will learn something new in the process. Maybe you can tweak it so that it works better in the future."

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Jagriti Agrawal: Leading the way for AI in education

(April 17, 2024) Jagriti Agrawal, the co-founder of Kira Learning, is a woman with a mission. Her aim is to bring Computer Science and AI education to middle school and high school students, to empower teachers to teach, and students to learn, through a specially developed curriculum and AI-enabled tools. Now based in Palo Alto, the Forbes 30 Under 30 worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she helped build autonomous planning systems for NASA's Perseverence rover. However, the journey to the top wasn't a smooth one, and Jagriti began her career feeling like an outsider who was far beyond her peers... A rocky start When she first arrived at university, Jagriti had never studied Computer Science before, and signed up for an 'intro' class, designed for people like herself. However, the class was extremely difficult and she and her friends struggled with it. "It affected our self-worth for years after, because the way you're taught and your education can affect how you see yourself. That experience made me think of how education can affect self-esteem," said Jagriti. [caption id="attachment_37236" align="aligncenter" width="532"] Jagriti Agrawal[/caption] Although the seed had been planted, Jagriti Agrawal graduated from Cal Tech and joined NASA's Jet

-content/uploads/2024/04/jagriti-2-1024x971.png" alt="Jagriti Agrawal | Kira Learning | Global Indian" width="532" height="504" /> Jagriti Agrawal[/caption]

Although the seed had been planted, Jagriti Agrawal graduated from Cal Tech and joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs, where she was part of a 30-odd member team building the Autonomous Planning Systems for the Perseverance Rover. JPL also had a fairly extensive education programme and Jagriti began teaching through this. "I had also tutored kids, especially those living in women's shelters," she says.

Pivot into education

This kindled a new passion in her and Jagriti decided to risk it all. She quit her job at NASA and went to Stanford Business School. "It was a huge pivot for me, but my experiences teaching had showed me the impact of education and that the way someone is taught can impact their self esteem. That was motivating to me," Jagriti recalls. "After three year sof working at JPL I wanted to see if I could turn this passion into a career. And I knew that Stanford had some good education classes."

She went to Stanford, she says, with an open mind, knowing the university offered good education classes. A startup still wasn't on her mind, she didn't even know anyone who worked in one. "I went with the attitude that I want to learn and work in education and help people. THat was my high level thing." At university, though, she began talking more to people at startups and learned more about them.

And it so happened that she received an email from Andrea Pasinetti, a Stanford alumni who wanted to collaborate with students for his startup. Jagriti joined him as an intern over the summer, and found in Andrea Pasinetti a strong and supportive mentor. "It's really important to surround yourself with the right mentors," she says. "He made me believe I could do it and be a co-founder, much more than I did."

Kira Learning

The AI education company recently completed its Series A funding, and raised $15 million. Their aim is empower students and teachers at the middle and high school levels in AI and CS education, through a specially designed curriculum, and a host of AI tools. "We work with professors from Stanford and Berklee who have experience in the teaching these subjects," Jagriti explains. "It's not easy to build a curriculum that's exciting and motivating."

That is the core aim of Kira Learning however - to empower and to motivate. The curriculum includes video instructions, exercises, activities and projects to facilitate learning and to also help teachers, many of whom are teaching these subjects for the first time. Jagriti's responsibilities involve leading the development of content and curriculum, improving the autograding capabilities and using AI as a teaching tool. "We are developing an AI tutor companion which will guide students when they get stuck on a problem. Our challenge is to make sure that the AI doesn't produce the wrong answer, or even produce the answer in full. We want the students to not be stuck but we also want them to learn." A beta version is nearly ready for release.

Scaling up

Their biggest partnership is with the state of Tennessee, and their course has also been used by the state of Ohio. Kira Learning hopes to work at the government level and to introduce their curriculum to schools at a large scale. "We're also speaking to New York and California," Jagriti adds. That apart, the company is also setting up a presence in Asia, as well as East and West Africa.

Purpose and legacy

Driven by her purpose to empower, Jagriti says, "I hope I can be someone who helps other people believe in themselves a little more." Education, she says, has a big role to play in that. "We want to create a curriculum that makes people feel they can be who they want and do what they want. And hopefully, they will also be empathetic and kind," she smiles.

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Maya Joshi: Indian-American teen lifting senior citizens out of isolation through art

(March 8, 2024) Growing up in Chicago, Maya Joshi's favourite memories revolved around learning to paint and weave with her grandparents. This passion for the visual arts stemmed from her early childhood. But when the COVID-19-induced pandemic in 2020 called for a worldwide lockdown, the Indian-American teen found it hard to access her grandparents. This isolation "kindled the idea of expanding social connection by using technology and willing volunteers" and led to the birth of Lifting Hearts with the Arts. [caption id="attachment_36437" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Maya Joshi is the founder of Lifting Hearts With Arts[/caption] Lifting seniors out of isolation Seeing the senior population facing social isolation, she decided to bridge the gap by expanding social gaps between youth and senior citizens. "We try to connect the seniors with high school volunteers through technology and through the arts in an effort to lift their spirits and improve their mental health," she said in an interview. ALSO READ | Sai Hitesh Vavilapalli: Indian-American teen’s nonprofit empowers the visually impaired It was the shelter-in-place order in Illinois that prompted her to come up with the idea. "When it hit, I thought about my grandparents, and how I couldn't meet them in person. I

tal health," she said in an interview.

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It was the shelter-in-place order in Illinois that prompted her to come up with the idea. "When it hit, I thought about my grandparents, and how I couldn't meet them in person. I thought about how I spent so much of my early childhood going over to their house, especially weaving with my grandmother and painting with the grandpa," she added. Manya saw how happy her grandparents were when they got video and phone calls and wanted to share the same joy with as many senior citizens as possible. "I knew that I needed to create a program to facilitate my idea," she revealed, adding that it became a dining table conversation with her family who turned out to be her support system. They soon outlined goals and started reaching out to senior living facilities and their high school friends to build Lifting Hearts with the Arts.

In April 2020, it came into action with the mission to engage the community through intergenerational learning with the arts. "In youth, art helps foster creative thinking, boosts self-esteem, and establishes a sense of accomplishment. In adult populations, art can prevent cognitive decline by improving memory, reasoning, and resilience," reads their website.

Bridging the gap and community building

When Maya began her first virtual meetings with the residents, she was a little skeptical of breaking the ice with them. However, she realised that it was actually very easy. Sharing an experience, she said, "One day, I was hosting a trivia game for a group of 6 residents via Zoom, and we started talking about languages the residents took in high school. I told them that I was taking Latin, not expecting anyone to have taken it. It turned out that all 6 of them had taken Latin in high school," adding, "We started reminiscing about texts that we had all read in school, and they even offered some advice for translating some of Virgil and Caesar's texts!"

It was her parents in whom she found her first mentors, who guided her at every step. "My grandparents have been my biggest cheerleaders and were the organization’s first followers on Facebook," revealed Maya, who is currently studying at Princeton University.

Understanding its ramifications, they pair high school students with seniors at long-term care facilities for one-on-one and group activities to build long-term friendships on the basis of mutual interests. The activities include playing games, painting or drawing together, sharing cooking/baking recipes, or listening to music.

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Explaining one of the group activities 'Name that Tune' with the seniors, Maya said that volunteers play the first one minute of a song and the residents need to guess the name and artist. "Some of our high school volunteers weren’t sure what decade to play music from. After talking to several of the seniors, we found that 40s and 60s music was the most popular. In fact, I have found a new love for the musical jams of the 50s and 60s," she added.

Taking the next step

After its success during the pandemic, in the fall of 2023, CoGen Creations was yet another program that was introduced to "encourage open communication to counteract stereotypes and increase understanding between generations." Based on mutual interests and hobbies, it pairs ten high school students with ten senior residents at a local care facility in Chicago where they meet during an ice cream social or create a first art piece together. It gives them a chance to get to know each other better by engaging in a dialogue and by expressing themselves through dialogue. "The hope is that seniors and students might build long-lasting, intergenerational friendships that will enrich their lives."

In the last few years, Lifting Hearts with the Arts has been on a mission to use the arts to connect seniors and youth through virtual or in-person activities to build long-lasting friendships. Interestingly, the organisation is now expanding the program for college students too. "Finding common grounds with seniors has helped the volunteers develop empathy."

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Grammy whammies: Notes from 12 Indian musicians that shone at the awards

(April 8, 2022) When Ricky Kej’s soulful notes coupled with Steward Copeland’s eclectic music gave Divine Tides an ethereal essence, one was transported into a reverie of beautiful music. Winning the Grammy in the best new album category at the 64th annual Grammy Awards ceremony at Las Vegas in April, brought back the spotlight on Indian talent and how it has shone on the world stage. Falguni Shah took home the statue in the children’s music album category. It is shocking though that melody queen Lata Mangeshkar never won a Grammy. Global Indian turns the spotlight on the 12 outstanding musicians from India who have been honoured with the Grammy since 1959. Some are multi-Grammy winners too. Here’s the GI list of maestros… Pandit Ravi Shankar, sitarist and composer Shankar (7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) got nominated for the Grammy awards six times, and won it five times, out of which two were posthumous honours. The sitar maestro was recognised as the world's best exponent of north Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century. He developed a distinct style establishing confluence of north Indian classical music with rhythm practices of Carnatic music. Shankar was fond

classical music in the second half of the 20th century. He developed a distinct style establishing confluence of north Indian classical music with rhythm practices of Carnatic music. Shankar was fond of closing his performances with a piece inspired by the light-classical thumri genre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8rwRwmwRE

The stalwart introduced at least 31 new ragas, including Ahir Lalit, Bhawani Bhairav, Bairagi Rasiya, Yaman Manjh, Tilak Shyam, etc. He also introduced a new percussive sitar technique called Goonga Sitar, in which the strings are muffled with a cloth.

Zubin Mehta, conductor of eastern and western classical music

Mehta (born 29 April 1936) has been nominated an impressive 23 times between 1969 and 2007, winning five times. He is currently the conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO). Several orchestras throughout the world have bestowed on him the title of honorary conductor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSp0sApmS6Q

Recently, Mehta made extensive number of tours with the Bavarian State Opera. Mehta and philanthropist Josef Buchmann have founded the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music as a partnership between the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Tel Aviv University. Mehta is the school's honorary president and has remained actively involved since its inception.

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Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram, percussionist

Vinayakram (born 11 August 1942) has been revered as the god of ghatam (earthern pot) as his renditions with Carnatic music explore the versatility of the ghatam, making it immensely popular. He won in the category of Best World Music Album in 1991 with Ustad Zakir Hussain for their work, Planet Drum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22c100WxNrY

Vinayakram is the principal of Sri Jaya Ganesh Tala Vadya Vidyalaya in Chennai. The academy was established by his late father and teacher in 1958 and Vinayakram has been taking the legacy forward guiding and producing new stars of Carnatic percussion.

Ustad **Zakir Hussain, tabla maestro**

Hussain (born 9 March 1951) wears many hats. He is a tabla maestro, percussionist, music producer, composer and film actor. He has been nominated thrice for Grammy bagging the award twice.

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A post shared by Zakir HQ (@zakirhq9)

The founding member of Bill Laswell’s World Music Supergroup Tabla Beat Science was amongst many musicians invited by President Barack Obama to the International Jazz Day 2016 All-Star Global Concert at the White House. He has been performing at concerts across the globe.

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Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Hindustani classical music instrumentalist

Bhatt (born 27 July 1950), plays the Mohan veena (slide guitar). He was nominated twice and won the Grammy once. Many western musical instruments like violin, harmonium, mandolin, archtop guitar, and electric guitar have been accepted in the Indian classical music. Bhatt developed and named his hybrid slide guitar as Mohan Veena. It has been accepted in the list of Indian classical instrument as well.

[embed]https://twitter.com/VishwaMBhatt1/status/1470379217024008197?s=20&t=3p5Bju1onfZ5ETQrEL1C3Q[/embed]

He is also known for fusion and pan-cultural collaborations with western artists such as Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas. He returned to stage after a crucial head surgery last year.

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AR Rahman, music composer

Rahman (born 6 January 1967) has been primarily working in Hindi and Tamil films since his film debut Roja in 1992. He has been nominated to the Grammy twice in the same year (2008) for best compilation soundtrack album and best song written for visual media for Slumdog Millionnaire, and he won in both the categories. The film fetched him an Oscar as well.

[embed]https://twitter.com/arrahman/status/1510768641142272003?s=20&t=PYe1CmTPEk2Jp59utZWYAA[/embed]

In 2009, he was featured on the Time list of the world's 100 most influential people and in 2017, he made his debut as a director and writer for Le Musk. He has recently released a modern-day anthem, Moopilla Thamizhe which is composed, arranged, and produced by him celebrating Tamil culture and the achievements of the people of the state in various fields.

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Sridhar, sound engineer

Sridhar (born 1958 – 1 Dec 2008) was known for his work with AR Rahman. He won the Grammy in 2008 under the best compilation soundtrack album category for the movie Slumdog Millionnaire with AR Rahman and PA Deepak.

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In his career, he engineered over 200 films and worked closely with Indian directors of repute. Incidentally, he engineered all songs and background scores for the renowned music director AR Rahman. He had pioneered the use of digital sound for Indian films in the DTS format. He had also engineered and mixed albums for international artists.

PA Deepak, mix engineer and record producer

Deepak (born 10 January 1982) won the Grammy for the movie Slumdog Millionaire with AR Rahman and H Sridhar. He started his career as a guitarist and later became a recording engineer.

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Apart from being a full-time mix engineer, he does music programming and plays various string instruments out of pure interest and passion. He has been collaborating with various renowned artists and performing as a music producer and mix engineer.

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Tanvi Shah, recording artist

Tanvi (born on 1 December 1985) is the first Indian woman to win a Grammy. She sings in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Afro-Cuban. She experiments with a wide range of music with her band. Her adaptability has been proven in her collaborative work with international music producers such as Jeremy Hawkins (USA), Gio Ortega (USA), David Batteau (USA), Che Pope (USA), and DJ Salah of Germany.

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She has donated her song, Zindagi, produced by JHawk, to the End Polio campaign album that features international artistes such as, Ziggy Marley, Itzhak Perlman, David Sanborn Donovan and members of the Congolese band.

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Gulzar, lyricist

Gulzar (born 18 August 1934) wears the hats of a poet, lyricist, screenwriter, author, and film director. He picked his first Grammy in the category best song written for visual media for Slumdog Millionaire with AR Rahman and Tanvi Shah. He also won an Oscar for it too. Gulzar made his debut as a lyricist with the 1963 film Bandini and has since worked with many music directors – from RD Burman to AR Rahman. Gulzar has prolifically written lyrics and dialogues for several popular Doordarshan TV series including Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, and Hello Zindagi. His latest work as lyricist is for Darlings, a comedy drama releasing this year.

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Ricky Kej, music composer

Kej (born 5 August 1981) is not only a music composer but also an environmentalist. He was nominated for the Grammy twice and won both the times, one in 2015 for Winds of Samsara and another in 2022 for his album Divine Tides in the best new age album category. The talented artist has performed at venues in over 30 countries including at the United Nations headquarters in New York and Geneva. Kej was named a UNCCD Land Ambassador at the COP14 to raise public awareness about the challenges of desertification, land degradation, and drought.

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He also serves as a UNESCO - MGIEP Global Ambassador for Kindness, ambassador for the Earth Day Network and UNICEF Celebrity Supporter. Kej has performed in three large-scale virtual concerts between April and July 2020 due to the pandemic restrictions with audience of over 75 countries with an estimated viewership of over 200 million people.

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Neela Vaswani, artist

Neela Vaswani (born 11th September 1974) is an American writer of Indian origin, and professor of creative writing, literature and cultural studies. She narrated the audio version of I am Malala winning Grammy for it in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4utcZ3IoPgo

She lives in New York City, and is the founder of Storylines Project that she started in partnership with New York Public Library. Before the win Neela did not even know that it is possible for a children's audio book to be nominated for such a prestigious award.

Falguni Shah, vocalist and composer

Falguni blends ancient classical Indian melodies with contemporary western sounds. She has won the Grammy 2022 under the best children music album category for her album A Colourful World. Since 2020, Falu also teams up with bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Clarence Penn and guitarist, and vocalist Clay Ross to form the American Patchwork Quartet.

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The Quartet interprets timeless songs in a modern 21st century perspective, leveraging immigrant histories and backgrounds. The group has been tour performing arts centres around the world, till date.

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