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Ganesh Anandan | He is a percussionist, composer,
improviser and instrument builder.
He
studied the South Indian Carnatic music, namely the flute, for
seven years with G. Venugopal and the Mrdangam, a percussion
instrument, for seven years with K. K. Parthasarthy in Bangalore
city, India. In 1977, he moved to Canada and studied western
percussion notation and piano. He was part of the Université
de Montréal Gamelan orchestra for a year, which highly
influenced him. He was awarded several grants from The Canada
Council for the Arts and Le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du
Quebec for artistic projects and higher studies in India at the
renowned Karnataka College of Percussion under T. N. Shashikumar
with whom he studied Tavil and Kanjira.
In 1992, Ganesh transposed
the Carnatic drumming vocabulary and techniques to other types
of hand percussion instruments such as frame drums, cajon and
others. He published an educational book and DVD called "Solkattu",
concerning these transpositions.
In 1994, he built a series of melodic
instruments based on the Indian 22 Shruti System (22 interval
octave) including the Marimba, Metallophone, Bamboophone, Tubeophone
and others. He also wrote music for them. In 2002, he built the
electric six- and 12-string Shruti Stick, a cross between a Zither
and a Prepared guitar.
Ganesh was commissioned to
write a piece called Autorickshaw Ride (11min.) for Ensemble
Modern (Frankfurt). He toured with them in 2004, 2006, 2008 (see
the recording section of his website for more information). He
was also commissioned by Canadian Heritage to write a piece and
present it at their annual conference for the Arts and Culture
in Ottawa in 2003.
He has scored several documentary
films.
Ganesh has
worked with a variety of Canadian and international artists including:
Ensemble Modern (Germany), Hans Reichel (Germany), Franz Hautzinger
(Austria), Conny Bauer (Germany), Espace Shruti (Interdisciplinary
project with French sculptor Pascal Dufaux and shruti instruments),
Omar Sosa Quintet (Cuba/USA), Carlo Rizzo (Italy), Paolo Angeli
(Italy), Gavino Murga (Italy), Malcolm Goldstein (US), Glen Velez,
(US), Bob Brozman (US), Glen Moore (US), Savina Yannatou (Greece),
Ramesh Shotham (India/Germany), Karnataka College of Percussion
(India), Debasish Bhatacharya (India), Hideo Arai (dance/Tokyo)
and others.
In Canada, he has worked with
Ramasutra (Ram Borcar), SoCalled Orchestra (Josh Dolgin), Inuit
singer Tanya Taguk, Lui Fung, Doug Cox, Rainer Wiens, Patrick
Graham, John Gzowski, Nouveau Theatre Experimental (Daniel Briere
and Alexis Martin), La Nef, Robert Lepage, Roger Sinha (dance/choreographer),
Hari Krishnan (dance/choreographer), Margie Gillis (dance/choreographer)
and others.
More about Ganesh and his music
is available at | www.fingerworks.org
Listen to an audio clip of the
song "Bird
Call 1"(Metallo and SS)
(2.5 MB download / 2:38 minutes )
(Media Player is required to listen to audio clip)
Photos and audio provided
by Ganesh Anandan
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