About Us
Home | About Us | Events | Past Projects | NoteAsia Supporters | Contact Us
The NoteAsia Foundation has been formed to enhance the well-being of the local community through the medium of Asian classical music.
Key Objectives of NoteAsia
1. Promoting Asian classical music by bringing to the UK accomplished musicians and presenting them to the people of the United Kingdom.
2. Encouraging the local community to participate in Asian classical music concerts and music workshops provided by trained musicians supporting NoteAsia.
3. Collaborating with local arts/music organisations and the local Councils to conduct regular classical music classes in schools, theatres and other venues where people are willing to meet and learn these traditional arts.
4.
Providing a platform to upcoming young Asian classical
musicians from UK and Asia by organising concerts and exchange
visit programs for them in the UK.
5. Creating a
monetary fund to support musicians of yesteryears from India
who are currently in financial difficulty. This is NoteAsia's way of
acknowledging their contribution when they were physically able and
continue to respect them in the autumn of their lives.
The Founder
The Founder, Anand Sundaram comes from a family of musicians. His father K. Sundaram was a Mridangam player (South Indian drums) and has accompanied stalwarts like Lalgudi Jayaraman. His uncles Ramachandra Iyer and Mani Iyer were highly respected exponents of Carnatic Music. Ramachandra Iyer held the position of ‘Asthana Vidwan’ at the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, a revered Hindu institution in India. And all of them have descended from Patnam Subramania Iyer, one of the doyens of Carnatic music in the 19th century AD.
Anand took up North Indian classical music on the modified Hawaaiin guitar in Calcutta when he was 10 years. His guru was Dipen Ballav, under whose guidance he completed ‘Sangeet Prabhakar’ (Bachelor of Music) by the age of 17. Since then, he has kept this interest alive and has performed in India, USA, Russia and UK, collaborating with Indian and Western musicians.
In 2007, Anand had the good fortune of meeting Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, the Grammy Award Winner and inventor of the Mohan Veena and his son Salil Bhatt in London. Panditji and Salilji kindly accepted him as their disciple, which is a great honour. Anand acknowledges as a blessing and continues to draw inspiration from his Gurus.
This passion for music inspired Anand to start NoteAsia . His vision is to make NoteAsia a platform for celebrating life and bringing the people of UK and India closer together through the medium of Indian classical music.
NoteAsia needs all the support it can get to evolve into a responsible, vibrant and active organisation that will unite people through music.