Amelia Cuni studierte klassische Musik und Tanz nach dem traditionellen System mündlicher Überlieferung bei berühmten Meistern im Norden Indiens.
1978 begann sie mit Khyal Gesang und Tabla in New Delhi. 1980 wechselte sie zur ITC Sangeet Research Acamdemy in Calcutta, wo sie den Meister des Dhrupad Gesangs, Ud. R. Fahimuddin Dagar traf, bei dem sie privat Stimmbildung nahm. Mehrere Jahre lang wurde sie von Pt. Dilip Chandra Vedi in Delhi und Pt. Vidur Mallik in Vrindavan musikalisch unterwiesen. Dort war sie auch in die Aktivitäten der Dhrupad Schule in Sri Caitanya Prem Sansthan einbezogen. 1983 begann Amelia, Kathak Tanz zu lernen. Diese Tanzform stammt aus dem selben kulturellen Millieu wie der Dhrupad Gesang. 10 Jahre lang studierte sie diesen Tanz unter der Anleitung von Smt. Manjushri Chatterjee, einem Schüler von Shanbhu Maharaj, in Delhi. Die Grundausbildung im Pakhawaj Trommeln erhielt sie von Meister Rahja Chattrapati Singh.
Die indische Regierung zeichnete sie 4 Jahre lang (1982 – 86) mit Stipendien aus. Sie verbrachte mehr als 15 Jahre in Indien und tritt seit 1987 in Indien und Europa auf. 1992 zog sie nach Berlin um.
Derzeit beschäftigt sie sich ebenso mit der Bewahrung und Pflege der Dhrupad Musik wie mit der Integration und dem Ausbau verschiedener künstlerischer Traditionen und neuen Tendenzen.
1999 wurde Amelia Cuni zusammen mit Werner Durand (experimentelle Musik) eingeladen, sich als feste Künstlerin im Kunstzentrum Podewil in Berlin niederzulassen.
Amelia hat schon zahlreiche Konzerte an wichtigen Spielstätten in Indien und Europa gegeben, wie z.B.: Dhrupad Festival (Vrindavan und Varanasi), Dadar Matunga Music Circle, Nehru Centre (Bombay), India International Centre (New Delhi), Music Academy (Madras). WOMAD (Barbican Centre, London), Parampara und Tarang Festival (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Chard Festival of Women in Music (U.K.), Festival of Women Composers between Asia and Europe (München), Intl. Symposium Teaching Music of the World (Basel), Alte Oper (Frankfurt), Maison de l´Inde (Paris), Gasteig (München) Giogio Cini Foundation (Venedig) und vielen anderen.
english
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 ITC 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 Shanbhu 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). Amelia spent more then 15 years in India and since 1987 she has been performing in India and Europe. In 1992 she moved to Berlin.
Presently she is engaged in preserving and fostering dhrupad music as well integrating and elaborating various artistic traditions and new tendencies. Amelia Cuni has been invited as Artist in Residence at Podewil in Berlin in 1999, together with Werner Durand (experimental music).
Amelia has given numerous concerts at the main venues in India and Europe, as there are:
Dhrupad Festival (Vrindavan and Varanasi), Dadar Matunga Music Circle, Nehru Centre (Bombay), India International Centre (New Delhi), Music Academy (Madras). WOMAD (Barbican Centre, London), Parampara and Tarang Festival (House of World Cultures, Berlin), Chard Festival of Women in Music (U.K.), Festival of Women Composers between Asia and Europe (Munich), Intl. Symposium Teaching Music of the World (Basel), Alte Oper (Frankfurt), Maison de L´Inde (Paris), Gasteig (Munich), Giogio Cini Foundation (Venice) and many others.
Amelia is engaged in several collaborations with composers and musicians of various backgrounds. In New and Experimental music she has worked with well known artists as there is David Moss, Luigi Cinque, Fernando Grillo, Roberto Paci Dalo and Rajesh Mehta. Together with David Troop, Paul Schütze and Toshinori Kondo she has taken part in the 1997 edition of the Impakt Festival in Utrecht. In duo with Paul Schütze she has performed at the Sampling Rage Festival 1999 at Podewil (Berlin) and at the opening of ARTE SELLA 2000 (Italy) with the project “Il sogno do Dolasilla”, including Werner Durand and Roberto Tombesi.
She is featured in the composition “Todo canto” (Chico Mello, 1996) which was written for her voice, operatic soprano, piano and tabla, premiered at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. The Norfolk & Norwich Festival 1999 (U.K.) has commisioned Terry Riley to write a piece (What the river said) for her voice and the East/West ensemble Sound Bazaar, which has been performed also at the Rainbow over Bath and Oxford contemporary Music Festival.
She is also collaborating with minimalist wind-player Werner Durand on the experimental project RE/ORIENTATION and on the multimedia opera ASHTAYAMA – Song of Hours, presented at the Podewil and ZKM (Centre for Arts and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany).
Amelia Cuni is also composing her own music in Sanskrit, Italian and English. She performs these texts in Danza d`Amore with an ensemble of Indian and European Baroque instruments and a dancer. For this project, which is bringing together Indian and European 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.
She has conceived and performs in the multimedia opera ASHTAYAMA-Song of Hours, co-produced by Podewil (Berlin), ZKM (Karlsruhe) and Vettori Ultramondo. Recently Amelia Cuni presented her new traditinal Dhrupad CD “The Morning Mediation” (Navras Records, Mumbay/London) in a concert in the Purcell Room, Southbank, London.
At present the German pioneer of electro-acustic music Roland Pfrengle is writing a piece for Amalias voice, Balinese Gong and live electronics.
She is collaborating with Spanish/German Composer Maria de Alvear on a piece titled “”Flores” for female voices and string orchestra. She has also been invited by New Music ensmeble Maulwerker to participate to a rendering of the complete “Song Books” by John Cage (where 18 raga improvisations are to be found) at Bielefeld Theatre in May 25/26 th 2001.
In November 2000 together with Werner Durand she represented Berlin at the Hong Kong Festival of Vision. They performed there with the Indian Modern Dance Pioneer Astad Deboo.
critical acclaim
Italian singer Amelia Cuni has a voice like a drink of mountain stream water, a voice that you might expect to find operating in popular song. But her area of expertise is that most ancient and rigorous of Indian styles, dhrupad singing.
Cuni’s vocal clarity and dusky sweetness sit oddly but perfectly in this austere context. Recent enthusiastic collaborators have included Paul Schütze, Terry Riley and David Toop (“Neo-Noir” on Toop’s Hot Pants Idol CD). For this album her partner is Werner Durand, a minimalist composer and instrument maker from Berlin. For several years he was part of Arnold Dreyblatt’s project, the Orchestra Of Excited Strings. The austerity and discipline of dhrupad is mirrored in Durand’s working method. Employing his delays and effects with great restraint, he creates around Cuni’s singing a matrix of colours and rhythms, in which every element is audibly generated by her voice itself. Sometimes a simple drone hovers in the middle distance; or Cuni becomes part of a choir of heady, sensual harmonies. Occasionally a beautiful halo of vocal phrases flits about the singer’s head like a cloud of butterflies. Always at the centre lies Cuni’s exquisite phrasing, delicate but determined, informed by prolonged and deep study of one of the world’s great vocal traditions.
This is not music that borrows a few Indian flavours, but a serious attempt to make something new and expressive from within Indian art music. It’s both extraordinarily beautiful and very easy to listen to. Durand never for a moment muddies the clear water or overdramatises. If Ashtayama’s effect is dreamlike, it’s a dream in which every scene is clearly lit and the shadows have sharp edges.
Clive Bell, The Wire, April 2001