Yatri
Prem Joshua creates a musical synthesis beyond borders. Traveling between India and Europe for over twenty years, he has studied with some of India’s finest musicians, including sitar maestro Ustad Usman Khan, and is well-known to music lovers throughout that vast country. A versatile musician who also plays Indian flute and soprano sax, Prem Joshua writes his own compositions and arrangements, drawing deeply from the well of eastern traditions without losing the pulse of contemporary western music.Born to a musical family in Germany, Joshua became a fine flautist while still a child before taking up electric guitar and sax. As a teenager, he performed in various rock, jazz and fusion bands, always searching for new ways to express and expand his music.Joshua first encountered Indian music at the age of 16 while listening to the Concert For Bangladesh album, the legendary live recording featuring George Harrison and other contemporary musicians, and a performance on sitar by Master Ravi Shankar. "I had never heard anything like this before," Joshua recalls. "This was beyond my musical grasp and experience but was something of such immense beauty and depth. It felt unfamiliar and mysterious--yet at the same time like a remembrance of something I knew very well."At the age of 18, Joshua left home and high school, setting aside all his career plans to go overland to India. Traveling through Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he studied and played with local musicians everywhere and became deeply involved with traditional eastern music. "I loved the roots of this music and felt an immediate connection that I missed so much in European music."When he finally reached India he had a sensation of knowing it, as if he was coming home. His intuitive familiarity with the country put him at ease with its beautiful sense of mystery, contradictions, colors and smells. He immediately bought a sitar in Delhi for the price of what you pay for its strings today.Little did he know that this instrument would soon become the mainstay of his life --and "coming home" to the land of India was only the "outer" part of his journey. "Here, I found the musical and spiritual nourishment and satisfaction that I had been looking for. I started playing with musicians from all over the world and learning from some of India's finest teachers, among them Maestro Ustad Usman Khan, who became my sitar mentor."Over the years he has refined his distinctive sound, blending the sensuous instrumentation of ancient India with evocative melodies, modern electronica grooves and danceable ethnic rhythms. His creative musical blend has brought recognition from critics, music lovers and the press throughout the East and West. In India, where he has sold over 40,000 records, he is celebrated as the "new guru of fusion."Accompanied by the versatile tabla and santoor player, Manish Vyas, Prem Joshua has toured around the world, giving highly acclaimed concerts in Malaysia, Japan, Israel, India, Europe and the USA. A native of Germany, he now lives in Tuscany.