Two British-Indian musicians selected for Royal Philharmonic Society Awards

London (Uttam Hindu News): This Two British Indian composers are among the 19 artists and composers shortlisted for the year’s prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) awards. Alpesh Chauhan OBE, music director of Birmingham Opera Company, has been nominated in the conductor category, and sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun has been nominated in the instrumentalist award and large-scale composition award categories, according to The Sunday Times.

“The 19 shortlisted artists and composers represent 42 per cent of the global majority, including cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Birmingham Opera Company music director Alpesh Chauhan and sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun,” a press note from RPS said. Are included. In a post shared on X, Leeds-born Degun thanked his teacher for supporting him in his musical journey.

Degun said, “It is surreal to announce that I have been nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) awards for ‘Best Instrumental Instrumental’ and ‘Large-Scale Composition’. I am extremely grateful to my teacher Ustad Dharambir Singh and the many individuals and organizations who have supported me over the years. The press note said that his work as a composer, co-music director and soloist in the highly acclaimed opera ‘Orpheus’, which was commissioned by Opera North in partnership with South Asian Arts-UK, has earned him large- Received a nomination for a Scales Composition Award.

Orpheus received five-star reviews and earned Degun the 2022 Critics Circle Music Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Opera.” His other awards and acknowledgments include Songlines Best Newcomer Award, Asian Achievers Award, Asian Media Award, and an Ivor Novello Classical Award nomination for Best Stage Work. Learning under the guidance of Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, Degun has performed around the world at prestigious venues including Buckingham Palace, the Amphitheater in Doha and Westminster Abbey at the Royal Commonwealth Service 2022 in the presence of the British Royal Family and the Prime Minister.

Degun underwent intensive training in India under Ustad Ustad Shujaat Khan in 2010 and in early 2016 studied as an International Scholar at the prestigious Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata under the guidance of Pandit Partho Chatterjee and Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty. Birmingham-born Chauhan’s debut album, featuring orchestral works by Tchaikovsky, was released in June 2023 on Chandos Records with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

He entered the Royal Northern College of Music in 2008 to study cello before undertaking the prestigious Master Conducting course. Following his musical debut in 2015, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, and has performed many of the great symphonic repertoire, including the complete cycle of Brahms’s symphonies.

In 2022, Chauhan was named ‘Migliore Direttore’ by the Italian National Association of Music Critics for concerts given in Italy in 2021, and received an OBE for services to the arts in the Queen’s New Year Honors in January 2022 . The RPS Awards will take place at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on March 5, with tickets priced between £10 and £25.