Ganesh Anandan
Montréal 45° 30' 11.46" N, 73° 34' 11.30" W Music Person Asian Origin
Ganesh Anandan was born and raised in Bangalore, South India, where he studied Karnatic flute under the tutorship of G. Venugopal and the mrdangam with K. K. Parthasarthy. After completing university (B. com) in 1976 he moved to Canada where he studied western classical music theory and ethnomusicology (Gamelan music). He took part in a variety of percussion workshops including the bodhran and tar with Glen Velez (USA) and the tamurrelo and tammurriata with Carlo Rizzo (Italy). Ganesh was awarded several grants from The Canada Arts Council and Le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec for artistic projects and studies. On one such grant, he had long term studies with T. N. Shashikumar at the renowned Karnataka College of Percussion in Bangalore studying the tavil, a ritual two-sided drum and the kanjira, a South-Indian tambourine.
As a composer, improviser and creator of original instruments, Ganesh Anandan is an extraordinary percussion explorer specializing in his own finger drumming language he likes to call Fingerworks. He freely combines his native South- Indian drumming techniques with those of popular and contemporary musical aesthetics. He transposed the karnatic drumming techniques to frame drums and wrote an educational book, titled Solkattu. In 1996, he built a series of percussion instruments based on the Indian 22-shruti system (22 intervals) with the help of sculptor and woodworker Nicholas Monroe. The double experience of Canada and India has styled and woven the ensemble of his work.
As an independent artist Ganesh Anandan’s artistic itinerary is eclectic and remarkable. Besides his contribution to film and theatre creations, he has composed and performed with:
- Ensemble Modern (Germany)
- Liang He-Ping - erhu (China)
- Malcolm Goldstein - violin (USA)
- Oregon (USA)
- Debashish Batacharya - north Indian slide guitar (India)
- Bob Brozman - slide guitar (USA)
- O. S. Arun - vocal (India)
- Omar Sosa - piano (Cuba)
- Glen Velez - frame drums (USA)
- Rainer Wiens - guitar (Canada)
- Ramasutra - dj Ram (Canada)
- Patrick Graham - bodhran and percussion (Canada)
- Carlo Rizzo - Italian tambourines
- Michel Cusson Ensemble (Canada)
- Colin Offord – great bowing company (Australia)
- The Karnataka College of Percussion ensemble - (India)
Ganesh has worked with dancers including: Roger Sinha, Mariko Tanabae, Hideo Arai (Japan), Peter Chin, Nadine Thouin, Natasha Bakht, Lin Snelling, Motaz Kabbani, The Beijing Modern Dance Ensemble (China) and multi-disciplinary artists Pascal Dufaux, Guy Laramée, Jerry Snell, Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon.