SANKARAN SUBA (India/Canada)
SUBA SANKARAN
Suba Sankaran is a DORA award-winning, JUNO-nominated musician whose career began at an early age while studying South Indian classical singing and percussion with her father, master drummer Trichy Sankaran.
She graduated from York University in 1997, where she studied jazz, early music, world music and contemporary improvisation, and completed her Master of Arts degree in Ethnomusicology in 2002.
Suba is artistic director of the award-winning Indo-jazz fusion ensemble Autorickshaw and regularly performs with other world music groups including Trichy’s Trio and most recently with the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and premiere percussion ensemble NEXUS, to name a few. She crosses genres with the FreePlay Duo, and sings the top 40s of the 80s with Retrocity.
She effortlessly combines musical worlds, spanning several centuries and genres, and has performed across Canada, the US, Europe and India. Highlights include performing for Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Peter Gabriel.
Suba is in demand as a private teacher, educator, choral director, arranger, adjudicator and composer and has given numerous workshops to choirs around the world.
She has composed, recorded and produced music for theatre, film, radio, and for south Indian and modern dance. Recent highlights include collaborations with Oscar nominee Deepa Mehta.
Visit Suba at www.subasankaran.com
DYLAN BELL
In a word… multifaceted. Juno-nominated Dylan Bell is a vocalist, instrumentalist, composer/arranger, music director and producer/engineer. Dylan went to York University where he studied piano, bass, percussion and conducting. He received his BFA in music in 1995, and his B.Ed and OTC from Western University in 1997.
Dylan is a mainstay on the Canadian music scene, having sung with many of Canada’s premiere vocal ensembles such as Cadence; Hampton Avenue, winner of Jazz Report's Vocal Group of the Year; the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, and the 1980s-era vocal pop group Retrocity. When he's not singing, he freelances as a keyboard player and bassist, working with varied artists from classical violinist Lara St. John, to world-music's Autorickshaw, to veteran rockers Honeymoon Suite.
Behind the mixing board, Dylan has produced or engineered several award-winning albums, including a Juno co-nomination as Best Engineer for the Cadence album Twenty For One, and an upcoming album with the world-renowned Swingle Singers.
Dylan's work as a composer has garnered international recognition, as winner of the John Lennon International Songwriting Competition (Best Jazz Song, 2005), and a Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award (Best Original Song, 2006). His music can be heard in such varying contexts as the Victoria Scholars, the Canadian Chamber Choir, Cadence, and coming soon, MTV Canada. Visit Dylan at www.dylanbell.ca
Pieces of their music you can find here:
Manju nihar - http://autorickshaw.bandcamp.com/track/manju-nihar