Turn up the music

A multi-genre keyboardist and composer, who is part of the well-known rock ‘n’ roll band ‘Manga’, Ashwin Mandoth is going places and couldn’t be more thrilled. While with ‘Manga’, the 20-year-old recently headlined a cultural fest at BITS Pilani Hyderabad along with the mighty ‘Thaikkudam Bridge’, as a solo artiste, he performed at the much-talked-about ‘Under- 25 Summit’ in Bengaluru with former ‘Indian Idol Junior’ winner Anjana Padmanabhan. But the icing on the cake in his musical journey so far has been being one of two chosen musicians from India for the India-UK music exchange festival titled ‘RhythmXchange’ as part of which, he performed in Bengaluru and Manchester.

An India-UK exchange festival to promote cross-cultural relations between the two nations, ‘RhythmXchange’ had four artistes (two each from India and the UK) joining hands to make music. While he and Karnatik vocalist Aditi Prahlad were the chosen ones from India, violinist-composer Vinthya Perinpanathan and vocalist-songwriter Joash Gill were selected from the UK. The four talented musicians were mentored by veterans — guitarist Aziz Ibrahim, musician and educator Balraj Singh Samrai, composer Vishnu R (inventor of the nine-string instrument ‘navtar’) and percussionist-composer Deepikaa Sreenivasan. “We combined the first letter of each of our names and formed a music collective named ‘JAVA’ and came up with ten original pieces,” he says.

Their first performance was at the Indian Music Experience (IME), Bengaluru, in November 2022. “We had a great time and played two shows at the IME. Post this, we had three solid months to polish ourselves before performing in Manchester,” he recalls. The two concerts in Manchester took place at the Manchester Museum in the middle of March and were attended by music lovers from across the globe. “Between the four of us, we covered several genres — from Indian to Western — yet had our own sound. Aditi and I even played Bollywood music much to the excitement of the audience,” he gushes. Some of the other highlights from the tour were performing konnakol, a form of vocal percussion, for the first time; playing a private show at the Contact Theatre and even taking over a radio station named Reform Radio along with his bandmates. While all the musicians have now returned to their respective homes, Ashwin plans to reunite with the members of ‘JAVA’ and release an album soon.

On the recording front, Ashwin recently released a single named ‘Meghave’ along with his ‘JAVA’ bandmate Aditi Prahlad and got great reviews for it. “Aditi and I performed this song along with ‘JAVA’ at the RhythmXChange and worked on it along with two other musicians — Mitra Hegde and Sumedh,” he informs. He also has an album coming up with ‘Manga’ and is simultaneously working on a solo one. “My bandmates from ‘Manga’ are undoubtedly some of the best musicians from South India and we recently shot a music video. I am working with Aditi on a piece for my solo album,” says the youngster, who is inspired by the likes of Arijit Singh, Pritam, Salim-Suleman and ‘Pineapple Express’.

An engineering student at BMS College of Engineering, Ashwin plans to focus as much on academics as music. Ask him how he balances it all and he says, “I just go with the flow.”