ABOUT US

Anne Kaftan - Saxophone & Bass Clarinet

The musician Anne Kaftan grew up in the Eifel. She received classical saxophone lessons from Prof. Horst Böttcher ( Hochschule für Musik, Düsseldorf) and studied "jazz and popular music" at the Halle Conservatory. At the same time, she completed a medical degree in Halle and later in Ulm and received her doctorate in 2000. Anne Kaftan was a student of Charlie Mariano. In her concert activities with various formations (e.g. KALIMA; PUENTE), the freelance musician touches an idiosyncratic stylistic range between classical, experimental music, jazz and world music.

In 2008, together with BOBO and Sebastian Herzfeld, she received the RUTH World Music Prize for the album Songs of Love and Death. In 2009 she was awarded the "Prix du Public" at the Tremplin Jazz Festival in Avignon with the Trio KALIMA.

Dr. Jyotsna Srikanth (India) - Violin, Vocal

Jyotsna Srikanth is the most sought after South Indian Carnatic violinist and composer known for her versatility and ability to collaborate with different genres seamlessly and with ease. She hails from a family of musicians, learnt vocal music from her mother Rathna Srikantiah from the age of 5 and carnatic violin from the legendary seven stringed violinist Sri RR Keshavamurthy. She also learnt western classical violin under VS Narasimhan. She performed her first concert for 2 hours at the age of 9. She is an all rounder who has given numerous South Indian classical (Carnatic) solo concerts, jugalbandhi concerts and jazz - fusion concerts apart from accompanying musicians of repute like the late Dr Balamuralikrishna.

• Ms. Srikanth is featured in many major global music events and venues like the BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, South Bank Centre, Barbican, The Music Academy - Chennai and many more major venues and festivals across the world.

• Jyotsna received the fellowship from Trinity College of Music, London. She is a medical doctor, a postgraduate in Pathology.

• An ‘A’ graded artists of All India Radio and has released more 10 solo albums

• Jyotsna has played for more than 300 Indian movies under music directors like Ilaiyaraaja. 

• As a session musician, Jyotsna has played violin for the soundtrack of British, European & Hollywood films. Jyotsna is also the Artistic Director of Dhruv Arts and London International Arts Festival and has curated festivals at world class venues in the United Kingdom.

• Her most memorable concert was the performance for UK Welcomes Modi event where she composed and performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for 90000 people at the Wembley Stadium during the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to UK.

• She was invited to perform at the Buckingham Palace for the inauguration of the Commonwealth heads meeting in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen of England.

• Jyotsna has been invited by the London Philharmonic Orchestra - UK,Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra - Hungary, VMU Chamber  Orchestra -Lithuania, Krystal Quartet - Sweden, Ligeti Quartet - UK and Vindla Quartet -Sweden to perform her composition, the Indian Violin Concerto, Raga Seasons.

• She has been the recipient of many awards like the ‘Chanakya’ award from the Press Council of India and ‘Ganakalashree’ from Karnataka Ganakala Parishath.

She is receiving the prestigious MBE(Member of British Empire) award, the third highest civilian award of UK, from His Highness King Charles in December 2024. 

She has been trotting the globe and has been collaborating with musicians around the world. Her prime collaborations are Nordic Raga - with Swedish Folk, Raga Garage - with western classical violin, Carnatic Connection - with Bollywood Brass Band and

Maya Jazz - with Balkan Jazz.

She has been a guest lecturer of world music at many universities across the world and conducts workshops on Carnatic music, comparative studies between Indian and Western violin at music schools and festivals around the world

For more details visit www.indianviolin.eu

Karthik Mani (Karthik Subramanya)  - Percussionist/Drummer

Karthik Mani hails from a family of musicians – his father, TAS Mani is a renowned percussionist of "The Karnataka College of Percussion", and his mother R.A.Ramamani is a reputed ground breaking Carnatic vocalist who has performed all over the world and has pioneered the genre of Carnatic-jazz fusion.

He has performed in various prestigious festivals in India, China, Spain, Germany, USA, Turkey, Malaysia, Morocco,UK, Bangkok,Thailand, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Indonesia and Australia to name a few.

He has performed with musicians like Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Hariharan, Dr M Balamurlikrishna, Padmashree Dr L.Subramaniam, Padmashree Kadri Gopalnath, Shankar Mahadevan, Loy Mendonza, Louis Banks, Padmashree Kavita Krishnamurthy, Carnatic Maestro Mandolin U Sreenivas to name a few.

And International artists such as Kai Eckhardt, Ronan Guilfoyle, Okay Temiz, Ramesh Shotham, Mike Herting, African singer Mory Kante, Tunisian singer Dhafer Yousuf, Afro-Cuban percussionist Mokhtar Samba, Paul Shigihara, Lucas Niggli, Trombonist Nils Wogram, to name a few.

Karthik has worked extensively in the field of Traditional Indian dances, Contemporary dances, Movies, Folk Rock, Jazz, Carnatic, Hindustani, Advertisements, Percussion Ensembles, Theatres Plays, Bollywood projects and many more.

He is been performing concerts throughout India as well as abroad and has performed in various International Music Festivals all over the world.He is the first Indian percussionist to win the “Independent World Music Award” for World Fusion with “Lehera”.
 

Lucas Rauch - Drums

Lucas Rauch began playing drums at the age of 11. First he learned drum set, but a little later also classical percussion, with which he gained a lot of experience in brass bands (e.g. youth brass band Blechklang, brass band Hessen, brass band Saxony). In addition to this scene, the jazz scene also became more and more interesting for him. Since then he has played regularly in big bands, such as the Landesjugendbigband Thüringen, as well as currently in the youth jazz orchestra of Saxony-Anhalt. 

Lucas is still a multiple award winner. Among other things, he won the German brass band championships with the youth brass band Blechklang in 2018, is a multiple awardee of "Jugend musiziert" (2017 and 2019), "Jugend jazzt" (2019), the "Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" (2019) , the “Association of German Music Schools” (2019) and many others. 

Lucas had lessons with Berkeley Williams (student of Alan Dawson), Professor Markus Leoson, Professor Jo Thönes and Dominique "Gaga" Ehlert.

Magnus Dauner - Drums/Percussion 

Magnus Dauner is a german drummer and percussionist. He holds a Diploma of Jazz and Education of „Hochschule für Musik und Theater“ Munich and is several times prize winner of the „Jugend jazzt“ competition. He was also part of the Bavarian Youth Big Band. 

As a musician Magnus is working in various types of styles and genres and found his latest challenge in the south indian rhythm system. He is studying Indian Rhythm and Mridangam at the Karnataka College of Percussion in Bangalore/India. He was working with international jazz musicians such as Matthias Schriefl, Wolfgang Lackerschmid, Kai Eckhardt, Torsten deWinkel, Paulo Cardoso or Joo Kraus as well as german national known pop acts like Sternblut, Klima or Losamol. Over the years Magnus was playing concerts in China, India, Sri Lanka, Italy, Norway, Slovakia and France.  
www.magnusdauner.com