Ever imagined sharing a campus with a Grammy nominee for seven weeks? Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM), a college for contemporary music, is bringing down world famous songwriter Magos Herrera from Mexico for a summer Intensive programme, starting from June 1. And participants such as music enthusiasts, hobbyists, professional musicians or amateurs, get to rub shoulders with the jazz musician over the whole of summer as part of the course, thanks to the gurukul system offered by the college.
Magos was nominated at the Grammy’s for her album Distancia. After taking masters classes in schools like Berklee College in Boston among others, she will be training music enthusiasts in the city on vocal technique, improvisation on Jazz, Brazilian and Latin repertoire. Besidses Magos, the faculty line-up for the course includes Fabio Gouvea (Brazil) - guitar, Alex Kautz (Brazil) - drums, Ed DeGenaro (Germany) - music production, Felipe Brisola (Brazil) - bass, S Karthick (India) - ghatam (Percussion) and Ujjayinee Roy (India) - vocals.
“You don’t just get to take music lessons, you get to be around these musicians, walk back together after classes and engage in casual interactions over the weeks,” according to Siddhartha Ramanathan, admissions and students outreach, SAM. The training includes nine hours of classes for the participants. “In terms of the pace of lessons, SAM is light years ahead when compared to other institutions. Also, since the campus is nearly 90 km away from the malls and theatres in the city, students tend to be very focussed into music,” he makes it a point to add.
The application window for the Summer 2015 batch will be open till the end of May 2015. The total fee for the course will be inclusive of food, accommodation in fully furnished serviced apartments and facilities like a gym, pool, media lab and library.
For details on the course and applications, visit http://sam.org.in/programs/summer-programme/ or contact 7299950087.