Hailed as "the new king of Indian classical violin" and “India’s Itzhak Perlman," Ambi Subramaniam is the exciting new voice of the carnatic violin tradition. The winner of two Global Indian Music Awards, one of GQ's 25 Most Influential Young Indians of 2021, and a youth delegate at the United Nations, Subramaniam is bringing carnatic music to new heights and new audiences. As an educator, he has co-authored over 20 textbooks in total and co-hosts The SaPa Show on Sankara TV, to teach global music to young children across the world. In this special concert as part of Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Colors of Raga deep listening classical series, Subramaniam is joined by Akshay Anantapadmanabhan on the mridangam and Sowmiya Narayanan on the ghatam.
About the Artists
Ambi Subramaniam has been trained by his father and guru Dr. L. Subramaniam since he was three years old and gave his first stage performance at the age of seven. He has received recognitions including the Ritz Icon of the Year Award, the Rotary Youth Award, two Global Indian Music Awards and was named among GQ's 25 Most Influential Young Indians in 2021. Along with his sister Bindu, Ambi runs SaPa, which teaches music to over 30,000 children. He has co-authored over 20 textbooks in total, including India’s first series of textbooks dedicated to teaching the Carnatic violin. Ambi was recently a featured soloist in the background score of the Bollywood film Sardar Uddham, composed by Shantanu Moitra. He also co-hosts The SaPa Show on Sankara TV, to teach global music to young children across the world. He is a youth delegate at the United Nations for the Sri Chinmoy Peace Meditation group. Ambi has an MBA in Finance, a Ph.D. on developing a global violin technique, and an LTCL in the western violin from the Trinity College of Music. Learn More at http://www.ambi.in.
Akshay Anantapadmanabhan is a reputed and sought after mridangam artist. A senior disciple of Sangita Kala Acharya Sri. T.H. Subash Chandran, Akshay has performed with most of the leading names of Carnatic music. He has also given collaborative performances with Hindustani, Latin jazz, American jazz and rock musicians in unique showcases of South Indian percussion. His latest solo production: ‘Re-imagining Indian Rhythms’ pushes the boundaries of Indian rhythms bringing together the mridangam, kanjira, konnakol and bharathanatyam with digital loopers and visual graphics. Akshay is also a core member of the viral Indian Classical fusion bands ‘The Thayir Sadam Project’ and ‘Carnatic 2.0 Reloaded.’ He has also published several academic papers on the mridangam and Indian rhythms in international music technology journals. He continues to work on research collaborations on generative approaches of Carnatic rhythms with NYU Abu Dhabi. Akshay is the recipient of many awards including recognition for his latest discovery of the "spotless mridangam", the ‘Best Mridangist’ award from the Music Academy Madras, Maharajapuram Youth Excellence Award, C.S. Murugaboopathy award from Krishna Gana Sabha, 2015 North America Young Musician Award and many others. He is also an educator of Carnatic percussion, teaching both classical and multi-genre musicians.