HUM | Harmony & Universality Through Music

As the world passes through a turbulent phase, the one unifying force that can heal all is truly music. The seven notes of music have a universal appeal about them and transcend all the false borders that separate us.

It is this enormous power of music that inspired the Grammy award nominated Tabla Maestro Sandeep Das to bring together top-notch artists from different parts of the globe in a unique collaboration. Thus was born ‘HUM’, an organization that strives for Harmony and Universality through the idiom of Music. Sandeep’s collaboration with the celebrated Cellist of international repute, Yo Yo Ma on the famed ‘Silk Road Ensemble’ for the last 10 years spurred him to create HUM and ‘bring the world back to India…’

In his own words:

“Having performed and composed music for Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble and having had the added experience of performing and composing for 19 years with the best of artists that India has produced, I felt it is time I did something to carry forward Yo Yo Ma’s unique idea of connecting the world’s neighbourhoods again— through music and other art forms. I strongly believe that in current times one cannot live insulated lives anymore and the more we care about and share one another’s treasures, the better it is.’

HUM-Lanxess

Scholarship for the Specially-Abled

The HUM-LANXESS National Scholarship aims to provide education in any genre of arts to differently-abled children for a period of five years. The scholars are provided with tuition fees for the guru, transportation costs for attending classes, funds for buying books, instruments, study/practice material. We go a step further, and engage highly-qualified and experienced gurus, who can guide the children in pursuing arts in their lives and careers. The programme is the brain-child of HUM’s Creative Director, Sandeep Das. The eminent and versatile singer, Shubha Mudgal, is our adviser.

At present, his scholarship has been awarded to five visually impaired children to pursue education in field of music:

Abhishek B., Pt. Kishan Maharaj Fellow of the Arts
Palak S., Yo-Yo Ma Fellow of the Arts
Shweta S., Kashinath Das Fellow of the Arts
Pankaj G.
Pramod G.

Scholarship

Achievments & Future Plans

‘HUM’ has envisioned the creation of a common platform in India for artists of the highest caliber from across the world to share their music, tradition and heritage and facilitate an interaction among them. It hopes to showcase excellence in ‘Global Music’ to discerning audiences across various cities of India through concert presentations.

‘HUM’ has sponsored 9 visually impaired children to learn music via the HUM-LANXESS National Scholarship, that would be open to specially abled children pursuing any genre of art from anywhere in the country.

The fulfillment of many of these humble objectives was through The World Premier Concert of the collaboration on the 7th of March 2010 @ Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi. And on the 10th of March @ Birla Sabhagar, Kolkata. This maiden concert brought Sandeep Das and his group of young Indian musicians together with internationally acclaimed musicians from various countries namely Spain, China & The United States of America.

These maiden concert were followed by Rhythm of Life concerts at Siri Fort Audi in New Delhi and Nehru Centre in Mumbai (2011) and the World Harmony Concert in New Delhi (2012). Thereafter, the ensemble was invited to perform at the prestigious Europalia Festival in Brussels.

In January 2015, we held a World Music Concert, at Satya Sai Auditorium, Delhi. The concert featured Syrian artist Kinan Azmeh and vocal-duo of Ritesh & Rajnish Mishra. This was also the debut concert of the first Hum-Lanxess scholars. Since then, the HUM Ensemble has been invited for residencies and performances across the U.S. More information about HUM's current touring projects is available on the Ensemble's web page.

Future Goals:

Conduct workshops for young students of music and give them an opportunity to perform with musicians from various countries. This would both inspire and involve young minds from India and introduce them to the nuances of music from various countries.
Offer a helping hand to aging artists who have no financial source of support for medical facilities.
Have Residencies where these artists could work, live and interact with students on a real time basis in several leading educational institutions of India.
Provide scholarships, awards and performance opportunities for young talents.
Take the ensemble to other countries so that in future these young artists continue to enrich the world with what they have learnt.
Conduct corporate workshops to share the experiences and challenges of cross-cultural collaboration and team-building.
Involve specially-abled and underprivileged children of India; expose them to the richness of this music and provide the talented among them opportunities to perform with these internationally acclaimed artists after suitable training.