Kala Ramnath

I decided to look at the World Music section of Amazon's mp3 store for inspiration for today's blog post and that's how I discovered Kala Ramnath. Ramnath has composed many different types of music in her career but I tend to prefer her compositions that involve her playing the violin in a fast-paced manner.

Kala Ramnath is a violinist from Chennai, India, who tends to play northern Indian classical music. Her family is very musical and she's related to the violin legends, T. N. Krishnan and N. Rajam, so successful music careers run in the family. When she plays the violin, she employs an intricate fingering and bowing technique. Her particular technique of playing the violin is very original because she plays it is a way that makes its music seem more like vocal music and so her violin is known as the "singing violin" (this led to her calling one of her albums, Singing Violin). She has participated in projects involving musicians, who specialise in jazz, African music, flamenco, and Western classical music. She is also part of at least three fusion bands: Global Conversation (which performs jazz influenced by raga and raga inflicted with jazz), Yashila and Four Elements.

If you'd like to listen to more of her music, here are the links to her mp3 albums on Amazon:

Kala, Nectar, Ragamala, Kala Ramnath, Ekta - Unity, Touching Air, Samaya, Tribute To Tansen - Raga Miyan Ki Todi