Category
Music
Date
January, 20th 2018.
The Amithias Project
Music from India and the Alps
Amith Nadig: bamboo flute
Matthias Schriefl: trumpet, flugel horn
Vinod Shyam Anoor: mrudanga, konnakkol
Sunaad Anoor: khanjira, konnakkol
Matthias Schriefl, when still a youngster, was invited by the famous saxophone player, Charlie Mariano for a mutual cooperation with the Karnataka College of Percussion, which led Schriefl to a more intensive study of Indian music.
In Bangalore, some years ago, it turned into an intense friendship with a band of two bandleaders: Amith Nadig and Matthias Schriefl. The band’s musicians have come from Columbia, India, and Germany (Upper Alps) – what a mixture – true world music!
Amith Nadig, a virtuous flute player, had already performed with some of the subcontinent’s best classical musicians. However, tackling his own complex culture was not satisfying enough for Amith—here, he also plays among others, samba, blues and mambo, and even yodels (in an Indian way).
The musicians are constantly trying to discover the connections of jazz harmony and Indian ragas as well as mutual grooves around the globe. It’s fascinating, the combination of South Indian rhythm and European harmony. And due to the herewith demanded mutual research, their own horizons must be set aside, offering a borderless and unconditional joy for music.
“For the first time I felt convinced by Indian-Jazz fusion.” —Ashish Sankrityayan
“From Bavarian and Swiss Alps to how a morning in Bangalore sounds and feels like, the music of Amithias Project is varied and culturally diverse.” —Garima Arora, Deccan Herald
“Passionate “Schriefling”—world music from between the Alps and India” —Haller Tagblatt
“Certainly your ears and soul need these kinds of music to bring harmony through arts among today’s people.” —BC Manjunath
Artists
Amith A Nadig
Flautist
Amith comes from a family of musicians and has been widely acclaimed as a child prodigy of Karnataka. He is the son and student of flautist Vidwan B.K.Anantharam. He underwent training under Padma Bhushana Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr.R.K.Srikantan to learn the finer aspects of the Gayaki Style of flute playing for almost 2 decades.
He has been performing on stage for the past 23 years and has performed at all prestigious festivals all over India and abroad.
He effortlessly adapts his playing to perform with musicians from different genres of music including Karnatic, Hindustani, Jazz, Fusion etc. which makes him a very sought after flautist in India today.
Amith is one of the youngest “A” graded artistes of ALL INDIA RADIO and has been featured on the most prestigious National Programme of Music at a very young age of 21 and also the South Zone hook-up concert from Doordarshan. A recipient of Ananya Yuva Puraskara for the year 2016, Amith has had the honor of being the only Indian to have been invited to perform at the Dusseldorf Church Organ Festival and JazzArt Festival in 2016.
He has been awarded the annual award of Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira in the year 2017 and has been accompanied by some of the top ranking musicians of India.
In October 2018, Amith was invited as a featured solist in the most prestigious HR-Frankfurt Big Band where he presented music from his Indo-Jazz band “The Amithias Project” along with world renowned trumpet virtuoso Matthias Schreifl.
In May 2017, Amith performed in Europe’s biggest jazz Festival at Germany as part of Jazz Fruhling.
Apart from being a flutist, Amith is also a software lead at SM Netserv Technologies being able to balance both his career and passion by staying focused and working hard day in and day out bringing nothing but excellence to the table.
Matthias Schriefl
Jazz musician
Matthias Schriefl, born in 1981, grew up on the edge of the Alps in Maria Rain. From 2000 to 2005 he studied in Cologne and Amsterdam. Since 2006 he has been organizing the concert series Jazz-O-Rama at the Artheater Köln. From 2008 to 2010, he toured with his band Shreefpunk as the “Rising Star” of the European Concert Hall Organization through the major concert halls of Europe. After that he experimented mainly with alpine music. In 2012, he released the multi-award-winning album Six, Alps & Jazz on ACT’s Young German Jazz series. This is followed until today regularly by new CD recordings with various bands in which he as a musician and composer to his respective fellow musicians like “tailor made” his pieces on the body.
Schriefl lives in Cologne and partly in the Allgäu. His musical curiosity inspires him again and again on longer study trips to India and stays in African and South American countries, where he deals with various musical traditions. In 2016, his versatile involvement paid off with the World Music Prize RUTH in Rudolstadt. He knows and loves big stages and the wide world, but attaches importance to bring jazz to small, rural venues regularly.
Anoor Vinod Shyam
Percussionist
Anoor Vinod Shyam, was born into the family of musicians. He started learning Mridangam at the age of 10 under Vidwan Rudrapatnam Sathyakumar and presently learning under his father Vidwan GanakalaShree Anoor R Ananthakrishna Sharma, the well known multi-talented percussionist.
He won second prize in the All India Radio National level competition 2012 and presently B-high graded artist of All India Radio.He has also won the Ananya Nadajyothi Kalapratibha Puraskara, Best Mridangam Artist Award during Kalavanta series organized by KFAC in 2015-16, Shortlisted as one among the top 10 young percussionists in the renowned Dumru Rhythm Festival, Ranked as one among top 10 Carnatic Classical musicians in the year 2016 by a musical blog The Humming Heart, and the Artist of the year award by Swara – Sunaadha Trust. Vinod Shyam has performed with stalwarts like Vid. S. Shankar, Mysore HK Narsimhamurthy, Kanyakumari, M S Sheela, pt. pravin godkhindi, Pt. Ravindra yavagal, pt. sathyajit talwalkar, Ustaad Shujath Khan, Sarod duo Amaan Ali and Ayaan Ali bangash to name a few.
Being a percussion enthusiast, he also plays other percussion instruments like Pakhawaj,Khanjira,tabla,
Sunaad Anoor
Percussionist
Sunaad hails from a family of musicians. He is the fifth generation musician from his family. His gurus include his father Vid. Anoor Dattatreya Sharma, his uncle – Vid. Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma and his cousin – Vinod Shyam Anoor.
Sunaad has been awarded the 1st place for Khanjira in the AIR National Level competition in 2012, the prestigious ITC Sangeetha Research Academy Award, the Kalavanta 2015 award, and the T A Harihara Sharma award from Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai. Sunaad has performed with many eminent musicians in and around India and has toured with the Amithias project having played with the prestigious HR big band in Germany
Sunaad has also played other instruments like Chande, Sammela, Cajon and etc with ensembles like Layalahari, LayaLavanya, and Kalarava to name a few.