Bangalore, Dec 12 (NDTV): Bangalore's music lovers have been treated to a host of top international music acts in the recent past. But India's IT capital has produced some world-class home grown talent of its own. And engineering's loss seems to have been the music world's gain with Bangalorean engineer Arun Shenoy has been nominated for the Grammy award in the category of best pop instrumental.
Nominated along with him in the same category were musicians Chris Botti, Larry Carlton, Dave Koz and Gerald Albright and Norman Brown.
'Rumbadoodle' is the name of Arun's debut world fusion record - and the musician was over the moon to receive a Grammy nomination for this instrumental effort. He describes 'Rumbadoodle', based on Gypsy Rumba Flamenco, as 'an explorative journey, doodling across genre boundaries.' The 2012 album was recorded in countries across the world from India to Spain, Canada, the UK, Pakistan and the United States of America.
34 year old Arun was born in Manipal in coastal Karnataka and went to school and college in Bangalore. He returned to Manipal for an engineering degree but the college rock scene showed this guitar player what he really wanted to do with his life. And while he joined the Tata Consultancy Service after graduating, later moving to IBM, it was music production that was his passion. His musical journey has taken him to Singapore, first for a Master's degree in Computation Audio - and it is where he now works as a music producer and composer. His productions include the genres of rock n roll, world-beat and new age music. Arun writes and produces music for his own solo productions but also for other bands and solo artistes.
Arun's wife, Roshni Mohapatra has teamed up with him as the Art Director on Rumbadoodle. He is now working on a follow up album to Rumbadoodle that should be out in 2013.
The 55th annual Grammy awards will be held on February 10 - and a little bit of Karnataka will be walking the red carpet on that night.