Associated with Commonwealth Music Partnership
First Trustees
Neecia Majolly
Neecia Majolly is the Founder – Director of the Neecia Majolly Centre for Performing Arts, the Founder of alternative rock outfit ’The Majolly Project’ and the Founder-President of The Majolly Music Trust, who has emerged as one of the most dynamic musical forces in India with international performances to her credit. With several music and film awards for ‘The Majolly Project’, Neecia has had her musical education in Brunei and Singapore and went on to do her degree in Music from the Western Australian Conservatorium, Perth. Her teachers include her parents, Ms. Marietta Baja, Dr. Georgina Emmanuel, Peter Cooper, Josephine Koh, Vivien Ngo, Dr. John Roberts, Sergio Snyder and Shelagh Molyneux. Besides being a semi-retired concert pianist, Ms Neecia is also an award winning singer/songwriter and composer, piano tutor, celebrity vocal coach, and conductor.
Giving her first public performance at the age of 6, and having being involved in various radio and television programmes in Brunei Darussalam, Neecia has several successful solo performances to her credit in Malaysia, Singapore, Western Australia, Brunei and India, and was also accompanist to Russian-American violinist Galina Heifetz in India.
Neecia is also in demand as a music educator having taught at the Delhi School of Music, the Bangalore School of Music (as well as being Head of the Assessment Panel there), Technics Music School (Sabah, Malaysia), and is presently teaching piano and vocal studies privately in Bangalore (including vocal training and interpretative workshops), where she has been living for the past 30 years.
The Camerata (now MMT Choir), Madrigals, Etc. and Femusica (an all-women’s choir) have all earned a firm reputation in India for being unique in their choice of repertoire and quality of presentation, including releasing the first ever Western Music Classical album in the country in 2009 ‘the renaissance begins’.
Besides being former representative of the London College of Music Examinations in Karnataka, Neecia is believed to be the first Indian Western Classical Pianist to have a piano album, ‘Pure Spa Gold Coast, released by Universal Audio, USA.
Neecia was also Artistic Advisor to the National Philharmonic of India (based in Japan), and has also worked as radio presenter of Western Classical Music in New Delhi, India, as well as critiquing for two major newspapers in India.
She also holds an Associate Diploma in Music Theatre from the London College of Music, Licentiate in Classical Singing & Principles of Teaching from Trinity College, London, Licentiate in Piano Performance from The Royal Schools of Music, and Fellowship in Piano Performance from Trinity College, London.
Neecia is empanelled in the Indian Council of Cultural Relations’ Reference Panel of Artistes’, and is also an Advisory Council Member of the Karnataka Artistes Association.
Recently, she was the Gold Prize Winner for Composition at the World Classical Music Awards.
https://www.facebook.com/majollybrunei
https://www.youtube.com/user/neeciamajolly
https://www.majollyproject.com
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Rajendra Chaturvedi
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Rajendra Chaturvedi has been a leading music composer and arranger in the Indian commercial music industry for a major part of the 80's and 90's.
Having studied to great depth both Indian and Western Classical Music, he has been always fascinated by the rich music traditions both forms have to offer, and his compositions have always been influenced by the melodic soul of Indian Classical Music against the complex harmonization of Western Classical Music.
In 1989, Mr Chaturvedi established an audio studio which had the most advanced facilities then available in the industry. These were the first roots of the THEME MUSIC Group of companies that went on to do many other ground breaking work in times to come.
In 1996, THEME started importing and distributing musical instruments and studio equipment, along with the designing and setup of project studios.
In 1998, THEME started the import of KAWAI Pianos from Japan which are among the world's leading piano manufacturers loved for their rich, warm, singing sound. THEME is the sole national distributor for KAWAI pianos in India and at present has 3 exclusive KAWAI Piano showrooms located at New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. These showrooms go by the name of THEME PIANO WORLD and are the only exclusive piano showrooms in the country!
In an effort to give back to the music that made him, Mr Rajendra Chaturvedi founded THEME MUSIC INSTITUTE in Greater Kailash (New Delhi) after having realized that Western Classical music needed to be an organized industry should it grow and receive mainstream acceptance. In all, THEME has launched 6 Music Institutes in 3 major cities across India including the first one in Greater Kailash; Gurgaon- DLF (2002); Juhu, Mumbai (2006); Punjabi Bagh, Delhi (2009); Bandra, Mumbai (2009); Koramangala, Bangalore (2010)
The THEME Music Institute prides itself on being the pioneer for group method teaching for piano learning in India which facilitates ensemble piano playing.
THEME is also one of the largest distributors of music books and sheet music from various international publishers such as Alfred Publishing Co., Faber Music, Music Exchange, Oxford University Publishing, Hal Leonard, Music Sales and many others.
Mr Chaturvedi shares Neecia's vision in building very high standards of Western Classical Music Education in India through The Majolly Music Trust!!
Board of Trustees
Ravi Kashyap
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Ravi Kashyap is a qualified and professional Piano teacher with over twenty years of teaching experience in giving western classical piano lessons and acoustic guitar lessons across all grades up to Diploma in teaching. Having a
Diploma in Piano Teaching (Dip.Teaching, LCME), and a Grade 8 in piano, music has always been a passion and profession and he has prepared students for various grades of music examinations conducted by London College of Music Examination (LCME) Board.
He has done his music studies under the able guidance of well-known musician Ms Neecia Majolly, and has worked as a piano tutor at The Majolly Music Trust for more than ten years. He now has his own music school (Kashyap School of Piano) that has been active for the past 15 years, training multiple students to become Piano teachers with continuous guidance and coaching.
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Praveen Francis
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Praveen Francis is an audio engineer, music producer, composer and Studio designer with more than 15 years of industry experience. He has been an active Grammy voting member since 2016. His songs ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ and ‘Song of Hope’ had been shortlisted for Grammy nominations (2017 & 2022 respectively). He has worked predominantly in the Kannada film industry in more than a hundred movies, beginning as an assistant DTS mixing engineer to Dolby mixing engineer. He has been a part of a few award winning international projects as a mixing engineer which includes artistes like The Majolly Project. Currently, he runs Angeltone Studios which is primarily focused on music recording and mixing.He is also currently working as a mixing engineer for Sound and Vision studios, Bangalore, which primarily focuses on localization of contents for Netflix, Amazon and other OTT platforms.
Advisory Board
Dhruva Seshadri
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Dhruva Seshadri started learning Carnatic music on the violin at age 8 and western music on the piano at age 10.
He has performed in cities all over India, including solo recitals in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Mumbai. He was placed third at the inaugural Con Brio All India Piano Competition in 2010, held at Mumbai.
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He holds FTCL, LTCL, LRSM and DipABRSM diplomas in piano performance, and has attended masterclasses and workshops with pianists Paul Stewart, Sheila Arnold and Delia Varga. He has also adjudicated at several junior piano competitions at Chennai and Bangalore, including the Kawai Junior Piano Competition in 2016.
Dhruva has collaborated with artists such as Neecia Majolly (soprano), Sunil Chandy (bass guitar), Arun Rozario (violin), Francis Rozario (cello) and Vineet Panikkar (piano). He has also accompanied choirs including the Madras Musical Association Choir, the Handel Manuel Chorus, the Camerata (in Bangalore, under the baton of Neecia Majolly), and the Coimbatore Chamber Chorale.
He has composed and produced original scores for several short films including a docu-drama, 'The Walking Mind' (2014) which depicts the lives of patients with Osteogenesis imperfecta ('Brittle bone' disease). He has also arranged music for stage productions of musicals such as 'West Sid Story', 'Oliver!', 'Chess', and 'Fiddler on the Roof'. Apart from music, Dhruva is fond of travelling, reading, and all things tech. He is an engineer by training, and presently works with the Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Indirect Taxes) at Pune.
