Surendran Reddy
Surendran Reddy (9 March 1962 – 22 January 2010) was a South African composer and pianist. After his studies at the Royal College of Music and King's College in London he had a highly successful international career as a classical and jazz pianist. He invented his own new musical style called "clazz" in which he fuses classical, jazz, South African mbaqanga and other world music elements. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works. Biography. Surendran Reddy was born in Durban, South Africa  on 9 March 1962. He grew up in Zimbabwe where he started his musical career at an early age. He studied piano at the Rhodesian Academy of Music in Bulawayo and already did concert tours as a classical pianist at the age of 13. At 15 he won a scholarship which took him to the Royal College of Music in London where he studied from 1977 to 1981 with inter alia Bernard Roberts and Yonty Solomon (piano), George Malcolm (harpsichord), Virginia Pleasants (forte piano), Anthony Milner (Harmony and counterpoint). From 1981 to 1982 he studied musicology at King's College , London University with inter alia Brian Trowell, Reinhard Strohm, Pierluigi Petrobelli and Thomas Walker. He graduated at the age of 19 having won numerous awards. While still a student he had opportunities to perform at London's Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Queen Elizabeth Hall. After returning to South Africa he lectured at the University of Durban-Westville, joined NAPAC as resident pianist and then became Head of the Music Department at FUBA Academy of Music in Johannesburg. He played with all the major orchestras in South Africa and got to work with international artists such as  Kiri Te Kanawa, and the Harlem Dance Company amongst others. He has also played with numerous South African stars such as Sibongile Khumalo, Allen Kwela, André van Eeden and Johnny Fourie. As a composer he has often been commissioned to compose pieces for national and international competitions. His works have been performed in Russia, Canada, the States and Germany as well as other countries. Reid Anderson, Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet and the world's foremost exponent of John Cranko's ballets choreographed his "Four Romantic Piano Pieces" which became a hit of the Alberta Ballet. In 1996 Southern  African Music Rights Organisation SAMRO commissioned Surendran together with six other composers each to write a movement of a larger oratorio dealing with issues arising out of the Human Right's Treaty and intended as a gift from South Africa to the Olympic Games held at Atlanta in that year. His movement is entitled "Masakane" (Let Us Build Together) and the orchestral version of the piece was premiered on 23 March 2000 by the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban. His piece "Toccata for John Roos" was performed at the 11th Unisa International Piano Competition in Pretoria in 2008. Surendran  has also written jingles for Radio and TV and worked as musical director for numerous shows. He has recorded extensively for the SABC and worked on a number of albums included his two solo CDs "Reddy, Steady, Go!" and "Rough 'n Reddy". At the release of the latter CD he devised the term "clazz" to describe his own unique brand of fusion - a mixture of classical and jazz styles as well as South African mbaqanga and world music in general. His fusion band Channel 18 – comprising himself on piano and keyboards, Bruce Cassidy on EVI (electronic valve instrument), Denis Lalouette  on bass and Rob Watson on drums and featuring his own jazz compositions – has performed frequently all over South Africa. In Germany he performed at the Frankfurter Musikmesse with his duo called "Campaign for Real Time". In 2005 he toured South Africa and Germany together with tabla player Florian Schiertz performing a fusion of classical Indian tabla music and clazz. His solo piano recitals took him a.o. to the Grahamstown Festival, South Africa and the New Music Festival, Youngstown. Together with Michael Wiener he gave seminars on racism at various Hochschulen in Switzerland. Apart from his work as a composer  and performer, Surendran has also been a creative artist in the fields of poetry, literature and installation arts. Surendran died on 22 January 2010 at the age of 47 in Konstanz, Germany where he worked as a freelance composer, pianist and music lecturer. Performing career. Piano Concertos with Orchestra (selection). Soloist with all major orchestras in South Africa