About Amit Diwadkar – Samvad Sydney

About Amit

Some things are just meant to be. Amit’s association with music is one such thing.

The Start

It might sound extraordinary to some but Amit started playing the keyboard at an extremely young age of 3. What seemed like an initial infatuation soon blossomed into a full grown fascination and Amit reached India at the age of 11 after spending his childhood days in the Gulf.

His first and obvious quest was to find a good guru who could harness his potential and he found a suitable tutor in Shri Karandikar.

It was here that Amit learned the basics of Indian Classical Music. After a year of learning under Shri Karandikar, Amit was advised to approach the legendary Pt. Manohar Chimote for further assistance.

And when a protégé met the right tutor, the results were profound. Amit flourished under the tutelage of Pt. Manohar Chimote and became a full fledged performer and composer.

While his primary ability was as a Samvadini Soloist, his mastery over aspects of Indian Classical Music such as Samvadini Gharana, the Khayal Gayaki, Thumri and Layakari became commendable.

Amit meets ‘The Piano’

When Amit was busy working in his digital music studio in Mumbai, he got an opportunity to participate in a prestigious program from the Berkeley College of Music, Boston. He travelled to Japan to be a part of this and that’s when he realised the power of the Piano.

He was immediately captivated by the tone, the range and the potential of Piano as an instrument. With some pondering over this, he strongly felt that Indian Classical Music has all along missed such a beautiful instrument. Amit kept thinking on these lines and started to envision piano as an instrument to perform Indian classical music.

He discussed this with his Guru, Pt. Manohar Chimote and with his blessings, started working towards presenting Indian Classical Music on the Piano, the traditional way – Alap, Jod, Zala, Thumri etc.

Amit worked hard to emphasise the unique capabilities of the Samvadini Style of playing on the Piano, introducing high energised innovative instrumental play (tantrakari) and at the same time maintaining the traditional model of classical vocal music (gayaki ang- style which transfers the emotional directness and tonal nuance of the human voice to the instrument).

His previous expertise in Samvadini helped Amit to flourish and he started exploring fertile grounds on the crossover of presenting Indian music on the Piano.

Thereafter, Amit has on several occasions presented Indian Classical Music on the Piano or on Keyboards where the Piano was not feasible to arrange, in India, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia.

Achievements

He was awarded All India Swarsadhana Award, in 1994 and 1996.

He was awarded the Government of India scholarship (Ministry of Culture) for talented musician for year 2003-2004

At the age of 21, he designed a fully functional Digital Music Recording Studio “SAMVAD” in Mumbai, India. This was an interesting phase in his career where he worked with various Bollywood personalities (singers and music arrangers including Sadhana Sargam, Vaishali Samant, Monty Sharma and Milind Ingle to name a few) as a Music Director for Films and TV serials and many a times as a Sound Engineer for Music Albums.

Amit had the opportunity to perform with musical greats – Pt. Birju Maharaj ji, Smt. Shaswati Sen, Late O. P. Nayyer (Legendry music director) and the Late Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saheb

Current Status

After pursuing a career in IT and residing in UK for 2 years, Amit moved shore and settled permanently in Sydney, Australia.

Today, he is busy balancing his musical career with his IT one.

He has collaborated with various Australian artists, among them, Temple of Fine Arts (TFA), members of Cloud Kollective (A very popular Australian World Music Band) and many others.

“I am a student of music and see all these as ways for me to keep growing and remain musically fresh,” says Amit.

“I love getting to explore different avenues in music, and whether that’s playing Samvadini, Keyboards or the Piano – or singing with a band presenting my vision of music or collaborating with different artists, I revel in getting to do all these things.”