Category: Music

Anjali Rose, formerly Ananda Luna, is an alt-indie music project currently based in between Brooklyn NYC and New Jersey. Anjali spent the past year in Spain, toured Europe for two months, then continued to tour back and forth between New York City, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Montreal for half a year before settling in New York City. She is finding community through a Brooklyn based music collective known as “The Sound Mind Collective,” and is starting a new feminist music project with an Algerian Darbuka drummer from the project “Darbuka for Her.”

Anjali started playing classical piano at the age of 8, but started playing in bands, and writing her own music when she was 20. The first band she played in was an all-women indie rock folk band called “Sapphic Prince,” followed by a five piece jazz indie fusion group called “Ginger Libations,” and then a short lived, three piece indie fusion band called “Maple Babe.” While living in Western Massachusetts, Anjali met a touring band from Montreal called “Thanya Iyer” and that inspired her to start taking her music on the road. Anjali’s bi racial heritage and frequent visits to India growing up influence her sound as it continues to expand and grow its global perspective. 

Anjali’s performances usually involve impromptu audience participation to capture the beauty, and challenge of spontaneity. Makeshift, or recycled hand percussion is passed around as well as looped sequences on a microphone so the audience can feel what it means to create a living piece of art in unity. Her most recent performance was in Almería Spain at a feminist rally, and involved yoga, and vocal yawning exercises to meditative looped vocal sequences. Anjali Rose has released two singles, one through Santa Rosa Records under the moniker “Ananda Luna,” and another self-produced cover of the infamous “Silent Night.” As a therapeutic response to COVID-19, she created a cross continental mixtape available on WordPress. Anjali plans to release two projects in the upcoming year or two. One is an EP with “Ginger Libations” recorded at Ghost Hit Recording Studios. Another is an album recorded in Montreal with producer and multi- instrumentalist Daniel Gelinas.

Links:

Website: https://www.anjalirosemusic.com/

Bandcamp: https://anjalirose.bandcamp.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anjalirosemusic/

Trumpeter, composer and Doctor of Musical Arts, Jonathan
Saraga, has received thirty international musical awards, grants
and/or commissions over the past fifteen years. He won the
International Trumpet Guild Jazz Solo Competition in 2007
and competed as a finalist in the 2009 Carmine Caruso
International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. He has been
selected for four intensive and/or residency programs including
the 2011 School for Improvisational Music Summer Intensive
Program, the 2015 Banff International Summer Intensive
Program in Jazz and Creative Music, the 2019 Banff Early Fall
Musicians in Residence program and the 2021 Chashama
ChaNorth Artist in Residence program. Additional residency
related accolades include finalist status in the 2021 Haleakala
National Park Artist in Residence program and waitlist status
for the 2021 Millay Colony of the Art’s Core Residency program. Jonathan has also competed as a finalist in three jazz-trumpet vacancy auditions: the 2011 Juilliard Artist Diploma program, the 2020 Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra’s 4th trumpet vacancy and the 2021 U.S. Navy Band Commodores’ jazz trumpet vacancy.

Jonathan received the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award in 2016, was selected as a finalist in the 2019 Chamber Music America New Jazz Work’s grant competition, as a semi-
finalist in the 2021 Unsigned Only Music Competition and received a total of five Semi-Finalist selections and one Honorable-Mention selection in the International Songwriting Competition between 2016 and 2017. In 2020, Saraga was chosen to present at the Association for Popular Music Education conference in Edinburgh Scotland, and at the International Society for Improvised Music conference in Melbourne, Australia. He has received Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Arrangement Downbeat Student Music Awards (2020 & 2021)
and was selected to participate in the 2020/21 BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. Jonathan has also received commissions and/or grants from the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers, United States Artists, the University of Colorado Boulder Music Advisory Board, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, the Actors Fund/Local 802 Musicians Union, the
Jazz Foundation of America, the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, and the Recording Academy/MusiCares.

Dr. Saraga has played in internationally acclaimed/award-winning ensembles such as the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, the Birdland Big Band, The Mingus Big Band, Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, and the Jimmy Greene Big Band, Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows Orchestra, the Terraza Big Band, the Valery Ponomarev Big Band, Manuel Valera’s New Cuban Express Big Band, the Jihye Lee Jazz Orchestra, the Erica Seguine/Shannon Baker Jazz Orchestra and the Migiwa Miyajima Jazz Orchestra, as well as ensembles led by Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Coleman, and Henry Cole.

Links:

Website: www.jonathansaraga.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/jonathansaraga

Age 4 is when Daniel knew music would be in his life forever. His father gifted a brand new red Sears brand electric guitar and an acoustic. It was a magical moment that set the stage for a creative future. In-a-gadda-da-vida was his first favorite song. He listened on headphones and learned the drum solo by tapping on surfaces until drums were introduced to Daniel’s universe.

It was age 11 when he took his first guitar lesson. He was taught Mary had a Little Lamb and basic blues patterns which were well-received and outgrown quickly. He met one of the coolest local rock guitar players in 1985, Jason P, That’s when Daniel was shown how to just listen and figure out the songs/play by ear. Fast forward a few months locked in his room learning his favorite metal and rock songs, he would aim his amp out the window and play various Black Sabbath songs. It was as close to being on a huge stage and definitely displayed his passion for performance AND playing music.

There are various original bands he’s played guitar, bass, or drums in through the years. It was 2007 when Daniel decided to focus on more of his OWN music. He set up a micro home studio and began making beats and recording tracks. He created sequencer drum patterns for each song and layered and panned his 21 tracks of guitar and strange SFX and vocals. He’s recorded 27 songs up until 2018. That’s when he began: “uppercase D and the lowercases.”

Utilizing Fruityloops and Caustic3, Daniel became heavily into using these programs to make “rock/metal/rap/etheric” songs, on software generally used for dance, hip-hop, and pop. Along with his songs, you’ll see his unique videos. As a true believer in straying from mainstream yet still knocking on it’s door with occasional deliveries tailored for listeners who enjoy simple or mellow music, Daniel uploads his songs on YouTube and SoundCloud for your enjoyment.

“There’s a song for EVERYONE!” His grandmother never told him that, everyday.

Links:

uppercase D & THEE lowercases: https://www.youtube.com/@uppercasedtheelowercases3123/community