Gaayatri Kaundinya

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT GAAYATRI KAUNDINYA

GAAYATRI is a Musical Artist and Composer specializing in the genres of Indian classical, and Indian influenced music. She is a trained Hindustani vocalist hailing from the Rampur Maihar-Senia Gharana having studied under the Late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She is the first pure vocalist of this lineage since the 16th century. Living in America and coming from this special heritage, she wanted to be a part of the mainstream music industry without compromising her roots. Eventually, she found a niche as a specialist for creating Indian influenced music, blending Indian classical elements with commercial genres. She has contributed original Indian influenced music scores for Film, TV, and Digital Media, and has written original songs blending Indian elements with mainstream styles featuring multilingual songwriting in Telugu, Hindi, and English. Finding that creating scores and soundtracks that integrated her unique background in Indian music into media music was a unique skill she could offer the industry, she figured there must be others from other musical cultures who have similar niches as well. The idea clicked - a production company centered around bringing to the industry world music solutions for media that could authentically represent stories of people of different cultural backgrounds. With this, her company Chai Time Studios was born. With her grounding in world music studies from her early days with the San Francisco World Music Festival to her BA from UCLA in Ethnomusicology, she had a head start in knowing where to look for the right talent for the job. She is passionate about pushing more respectful representation of different cultures in media music, and providing the industry with a one stop solution for getting authentic cultural music suitable for media made by the composers, songwriters, and producers who have expertise in this field. Finding that resources for supporting Indian classical musicians and music students are lacking, she founded Avartan Foundation, a 501c3. She serves as the Board President, and oversees the Foundation\'s initiatives. Avartan aims to proliferate Indian classical music through educational outreach, public reference resources, fostering community through events and discourse, and providing professional platforms and opportunities for current living artists to enrich the community with high level artistic output. Avartan encourages the practice of Indian music as a yogic discipline of sound, or naad yoga, designed for spiritual upliftment, mental agility and clarity, energetic cleansing, and health and wellness.