KANNIKS KANNIKESWARAN

The Teacher

New: Upcoming concert -- The Sound of Seasons

"Kanniks is a Renaissance man, a person who is completely comfortable traversing the disciplines of religion, cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology and art history. He makes connections for students with regard to all  aspects of culture, whether he speaks of music, art, religion."
Dr. Catherine Roma, Associate Professor of  Music, Wilmington College

As a teacher of classical music, Kanniks bases all of his instruction on the core of commonality between the Hindustani and Karnatic streams of music and his students of vocal music transcend linguistic barriers.

 

His rAga vidyA sikshA - a unique mode of teaching music has proven to be very effective in ear training and in enhancing raaga appreciation and improvisational skills. The rAga vidyA paradigm stresses voice culture. tonal purity and depth of expression in a manner that every swara is brought out with a purpose and meaning. A very patient and passionate teacher, Kanniks enjoys teaching music and his lessons and workshops are full of fun filled exercises.

Kanniks shares the knowledge of Indian classical music with participants in music workshops regardless of their level of proficiency in Indian classical music. His music workshops are packed with information and are a wholesome experience of  music, Indian culture and more and are full of illustrations from  the vast repertoire of songs from Tamil and Hindi films that are based on classical rAgas.

Graduate Course Sequence in Indian Music Theory and  History: Given his indological moorings and his familiarity with western music theory as well, Kanniks has been able to inspire graduate students  in his two quarter sequence of classes on Indian Classical Music at the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, that he has been teaching since 1994.

rAga vidyA sikshA: This is a workshop primarily for children (ages seven and above) of Indian origin with prior training in  Western music and with the ability to play an instrument.

Indian kindermusic: This is  a workshop for children under seven and is a fun filled introduction to Indian music.

Advanced classes in Indian classical music focus on voice culture, the compositions of Muthuswamy Deekshitar and improvisational techniques.