It's time for Africa

Shoonya, a fusion music band can make music out of nothing at all

Shoonya, the music band was born six years ago under the auspices of musician Ashok Kumar. He describes Shoonya's brand of music as world music. "We get our inspiration from Indian Classical, Carnatic, Sufi, African, Jazz and a mix of other genres of music. Travelling the world in the last ten years gave me an insight into music and motivated me into forming my own band which would surpass all cliched barriers of music and elevate the listener into a higher sense of being."


Ashok Kumar of Shoonya band

Having performed at theatre workshops and film festivals in Europe, Canada and USA, Shoonya looks towards the forefathers of Indian music Kabir, Meera, Thyagraja, Tansen for inspiration. Ashok explains the philosophy behind the melody, "Music is a vehicle to transform oneself; it is the road to spirituality. In today's world where speed plays a pivotal part in our lives, we need a little bit of Shoonya or nothingness to help us realise the vacuum we all live in."

Catch this six-member band Shoonya at Alliance Francaise this Friday as they focus on the use of African rhythm and instruments, which evolved 2000 years ago. There will be the Kora, a West-African 21-stringed instrument and the Djembe, a skin-coloured drum played with bare hands. Ashok has been playing African instruments for over 10 years now and wants Indian audiences to get a flavour of the African beats, "I would like our Indian audience to see the similarity between authentic Indian and African instruments." The line up for this show include Ashok Kumar and Guy Roger on djembe (African Drum), Chitra and Landry on vocals, Shridhar on saxophone and Armel on African string instrument Kora.

In this day and age of iPads and i-everything (sic), Ashok is still very traditional in his thought process, "I love live music. For me music is all about connecting to your audiences and getting instant feedback. It's my greatest motivation. I would rather perform every single day than make a CD. Sounds on a CD can be tweaked and voices can be changed. I wouldn't know who my audience is and that sense of ambiguity would not give me the satisfaction I crave. Technology maybe killing human connections."

Ashok will be holding weekend drumming workshop from April 2 at the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore for the next nine months.u00a0

At: Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, Vasantnagar
On: March 25, 7 pm onwards
Call: 41231340
Workshop Duration:u00a0 1 hour 30 min every Saturday and Sunday for 9 weekends.
For: Rs 4,000 for 2 months