>>> Amelia Cuni

has been studying classical music and dance from renowned masters in North India, following the traditional system based on oral transmission. In 1978 she started with khyal singing and tabla in New Delhi. In 1980 she joined the I.T.C. Sangeet Research Academy in Calcutta where she met the master of dhrupad singing Ud.R.Fahimuddin Dagar from whom she continued to study voice training privately. She has been receiving musical teachings for several years also from Pt.Dilip Chandra Vedi in Delhi and Pt.Vidur Mallik in Vrindavan. There she has been involved in the activities of the dhrupad school at Sri Caitanya Prem Sansthan.

In 1983 Amelia started practising Kathak dance (originated in the same cultural milieu as dhrupad ), which she studied for ten years under the guidance of Smt.Manjushri Chatterjee, disciple of Shambhu Maharaj, in Delhi. Amelia received her basic training in pakhawaj drumming from the master Raja Chattrapati Singh.

She has been awarded scholarships by the Indian Government for four years (1982-86). She spent about ten years in India and since 1987 she has been teaching and performing in India and Europe as well. In 1992 she moved to Berlin.

Presently she is engaged in preserving and fostering dhrupad music as well as integrating and elaborating various artistic traditions and new tendencies.
She has been invited to be Artist in Residence at Podewil in Berlin, for the year 1999, together with Werner Durand.

>>> Amelia Cuni
has given numerous concerts of traditional dhrupad singing, which have received the enthusiastic praises of the Indian national >press.

The main venues in India:
Dhrupad Festivals in Vrindavan and Varanasi, in Bombay at the Dadar-Matunga Music Circle and Nehru Centre, in N. Delhi at the India International Centre, in Madras at the Music Academy.

Selected dhrupad performances in Europe:
WOMAD Global Spirit Festival at the Barbican Centre in London, Parampara and Tarang Festival at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Chard Festival of Women in Music (U.K.), Festival of Women Composers between Asia and Europe at the Villa Stück in Munich, Int. Symposium Teaching Musics of the World at the Musik Akademie in Basle. Besides she has performed dhrupad at Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Maison de l'Inde in Paris, Gasteig in Munich, Schauspielhaus in Berlin, Union Chapel Islington and Purcell Room in London, Fondazione GIORGIO CINI in Venice, Tagore Centre (Indian Embassy-Berlin) and several other European concert venues.

She has sung for Indian dancers (i.e. Smt. Manjushri Chatterjee , Daksha Sheth and Astad Deboo ) in India and in Europe.

Amelia is engaged in several collaborations with composers and musicians of various backgrounds. In the field of New and Experimental music she has worked with well known artists including Fernando Grillo, Roberto Paci Dalò, David Moss, Rajesh Mehta, Zeitblom and theatre director Giancarlo Cauteruccio. With David Toop, Paul Schütze and Toshinori Kondo she has taken part in the 1997 edition of the Impakt Festival in Utrecht.
She has performed at the ZKM (Centre for Arts and Media Technology) in Karlsruhe in a concert including electronic music. In duo with Paul Schütze she has performed at the Sampling Rage Festival 1999 at Podewil-Berlin.
She is featured in the composition 'Todo canto' (Chico Mello , 1996) which was written for her voice, operatic soprano, piano and tabla and premiered at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. The Norfolk & Norwich Festival 1999 (U.K.) has commissioned Terry Riley to write a piece (titled 'What the River Said') for her voice and the East/West ensemble Sounds Bazaar, which has been performed also at the Rainbow over Bath and Oxford Contemporary Music Festival.
She is collaborating also with minimalist wind-player Werner Durand on the experimental project RE/ORIENTATION, which has been presented in several European countries including Italy, Germany, Spain, the U.K. and has been sent by the City of Berlin to Hong Kong in November 2000 for the Festival of Vision and included improvistions by Indian modern dance pioneer ASTAD DEBOO.
With Werner and various visual artists, she collaborates also on the multimedia performance ASHTAYAMA-Song of Hours, presented at the Podewil in Berlin (1999), ZKM in Karlsruhe (2000), Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, Tropical Museum in Amsterdam (2001), Düsseldorfer Altstadt Herbst (Tanzhaus NRW, 2002), Ijsbreker in Amsterdam (2003) etc.



Amelia is also composing her own music on Sanskrit, Italian, Latin and English texts. She performes them in 'Danza d' Amore' with an ensemble of Indian and European Baroque instruments and a dancer. The main festival appearances: Festival E' Vento e Suono at the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro, Udine Estate, Cusiano Festival of Early Music, Dartington Summer School Festival of Music, Pordenone Festival of Sacred Music, San Marino Etnofestival, Aspekte Indisher Musik at Passionskirche in Berlin and Festival Autunno Musicale a Como 2001. For this project, which is bringing together Indian and European Early Music, she is collaborating with violinist/sitarist and composer Francis Silkstone. With his ensemble Sounds Bazaar she has been touring the U.K. in 1998(i.e. Bath, Winchester, Oxford, London).
With dancer Astad Deboo, she was part of the music/theatre piece TRYING ORPHEUS, conceived and produced by Francis Silkstone and directed by Richard Cuming (Winchester Jan/Febr 2002).
She has conceived and performs in the multimedia opera ASHTAYAMA-Song of Hours, co-produced by Podewil-Berlin, ZKM-Karlsruhe and Vettori Ultramondo s.r.l.Udine, premiered in Berlin in December 1999.
With W.Durand, P.Schütze and R.Tombesi she has created a music performance inspired by ancient legends of the Alps, sang in Ladin. The project Il sogno di Dolasilla has been presented at Arte Sella 2000 and at the Festival Suoni del Mondo, in Riva del Garda, 2002.
With New Music ensemble Die Maulwerker she has participate to a rendering of the complete SONG BOOKS by John Cage (where 18 raga improvisations are to be found) at the Bielefeld Theatre (2001).
Roland Pfrengle, electro-acustic music composer, has written for Amelia 'METALL' (for voice, gong, tamtam and computer) which has been premiered in 2002 at the Essen Folkwang Hochschule during the festival EX MACHINA 2002. This composition is part of the music/theatre piece AN SICH - Bilder/Stille (Pfrengle, 2002) a coproduction Hebbel Theatre and Maerzmusik/Berliner Festspiele 2003. Spanish/German composer Maria de Alvear has written for Amelia 'FLORES', (for female voices, trumpet and ensemble), premiered at the New Music Festival: FORUM NEUE MUSIK in Cologne 2003 and produced by Deutschland Radio.

Amelia Cuni is a keen teacher and has given innumerable classes and workshops in Indian singing and dance all over Europe. Just to name a few: Tanz Etage Frankfurt, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Musik Akademie Basle, Teatro Tascabile Bergamo, National Yoga Congress Berlin, Conservatoires of Zurich and Parma, Universities of Siegen, Bologna and Trento, King Alfred's College in Winchester, La Sapienza in Rome. She teaches periodically at the Udine School of Drama 'Nico Pepe' and at the Intercultural School of Music (IISMC, Fondazione G.Cini, Venice) in Venice. She has been teaching at the Summer School 1998 at Dartington (U.K.) ISince 2001, she has been teaching Indian singing at the Vicenza Conservatorium (Italy).



Amelia's singing has been broadcasted on WDR, Radio Bremen, SFB Berlin, Dutch National Radio 3, RAI 3 Rome, Slovenian and Italian TV, WDR-TV. She has been interviewed by Radio Midday in Bombay, RAI 3 in Trieste and Rome, Radio Popolare Milano, Swiss-Italian Radio in Lugano, Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, SFB-Multikulti in Berlin and SWR-Baden-Baden and on several radio stations in U.S.A. Her voice is featured in the radio production (Audiobox, RAI 3) `Zimmerflucht, l'archeologia del commento', by Isabella Bordoni.

Her publications include: Dhrupad Annual 1992, Varanasi; Teaching Musics of the World 1994, Basle; Indian Music and the West (S.R.A. seminar Mumbay1996), Indische Musik in Deutschland (Aachen, 1998), Journal of the Indian Musicological Society, (Mumbay,1999) , Ear & Eye-Encounters with world musics, Schott Verlag (Mainz2002).

Work in progress:
* recording of John Cage's 18 microtonal ragas from his SONG BOOKS
*A CD of contemporary music especially written for her voice by various composers.