Composer - Paul Livingstone

Paul Livingstone Paul Livingston is an Indian cinematographer, born >> Read More... is an American composer, sitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He is one amongst the few American disciples trained under Pandit Ravi Shankar Born on April 7, 1920, in Banaras, Uttar Pradesh, >> Read More... . He has also been trained under the reputed Amiya Dasgupta, Rajeev Taranath Rajeev Taranath, an Indian professional musician w >> Read More... and all of Senia Maihar Gharana . While living in India, at the young age of fifteen Paul showed signs of being a musical podgy began studying the tabla and sitar. He has performed several classical ragas with numerous of the most leading tabla players of Nepal and India some of which include Pandit Shashanka Shekhar Bakshi, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Hom Nath Upadhaya and Abhijit Banerjee. Paul has designed his own instruments like the fretless guitar and Requinto jarocho and has performed with them.

Being a director and a composer he leads his own Arohi Ensemble and plays “raga jazz chamber music”. He also composes for television shows, films, dances and theatre stage performances. Along with this he has also recorded and toured with a number of popular artists such as Alanis, Ozomatli, Beck, Morissette, Build an Ark and HopPo! Along with doing tours with popular artists, he has performed at several music festivals across the globe such as Cumbe Tajin in Mexico and World Festival of Sacred Music. For five years ,Paul was one of the faculties at the university named California Institute of the Arts.

He also founded the Sangeet School of World Music at Los Angeles under this school he held creative world music workshops which happened in the US, Spain, Mexico and India. He has also published a workbook for learning the basics of playing the sitar under the title of Sitar Talim. Through the LA Music program with the support of Disney corporations, Cultural Affairs Department the city of Los Angeles and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office Paul taught the inner city teenage youth creative music for 3 years.

Over the years he has composed many albums such as Arohi CD in the year 2003, Salaam Suite CD in the year 2006, Vinaya CD in the year 2007, Live Classical Raga in the year 2009 and Tilak Shyam in the year 2010 . He has also won many awards to his name such as the APPEX Fellowship in Ubud from UCLA/CIP in Bali in the year 2004, then the Los Angeles Music Week Award in the year 2005 and finally he won the Grammy’s for playing the sitar Ozomatli’s “Street Signs” in the film Street Signs in the year 2005.