Amidst those who make more noise than music, more aberrations than rhythm and more controversy than friends, the voice of one man wades through the corridors of auditoria with power and melody.
In choosing Ashish Ramakrishnan as the Talent of the Fortnight, we have done ourselves a favour; for in course of time, we are certain to have opportunities to review his performances through Bollywood columns. That is where he is heading, although he cites family as the prime reason.
We do not know his age, but we understand that Ashish has been facing audiences since he was three years old. Since then he has appeared in almost 100 regional, national and international competitions, winning awards and citations in many of them.
He has more than 400 stage performances to his credit around the world, including the Kargil Fund (India), Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (London), the Auckland Sri Ganesh Temple Trust and Pakistan Flood Relief Fund (New Zealand) to mention a few.
Experts and critics join the chorus of fans and admirers in saying that Ashish has a voice that conquers people enmasse. They say that there is a certain magnetic power in his voice that must be heard to be believed.
For all the accolades that he deservedly receives, Ashish remains unaffected, attributing all his talents to God.
“I did not have any formal training or education in music, save for a short two-month lesson in Classical Music. But I have had the privilege of being groomed by a number of veteran composers in Bollywood. These include Kalyanji Anandji, and Babla Kanchan,” he said.
He has been featured in a number of popular television channels including Doordarshan (India), BBC (London), Music Asia (India), Zee Network (India) Asia Network (London) and Triangle Television (New Zealand).
He has performed in the august presence of a number of Bollywood celebrities such as Anu Malik, Roop Kumar Rathod, Sadhna Sargam, Sonu Nigam, Usha Mangeshkar, Meena Khadikar, SP Balasubrahmanyam, Preeti Sagar, JatinLalit, Meenakshi Seshadri, Hariharan, Anup Jalota and Talat Aziz.
He has been a participant in several realty show competitions, including the Zee TV Close-Up Antakshri and TVS Sa Re Ga Ma, in both of which he was the winner.
He has done several voiceovers, sung for devotional albums and has recently rendered his voice for a non-commercial Hindi movie.
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