Rajesh K. Mehta

Trumpet Innovator, Composer, Artist

Rajesh Mehta was born in Kolkata, India in 1964 and raised in the USA. He has been working professionally as a musician since 1991 and has been based in Europe (Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich) and Asia (Chennai, Mumbai, Singapore) and currently resides in Duisburg. Mehta is an award-winning trumpet innovator, composer/artist who has innovated several hybrid trumpets including the Drumpet in Amsterdam and the microtonal Naga Phoenix in Singapore.

Mehta graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) with a degree in Humanities and Engineering (with studies at U.C. Berkeley) in 1986 and studied music and composition with Mark Harvey at M.I.T. and Anthony Braxton at Mills College, California. In parallel to studying music, he worked in the field of Engineering Acoustics and as a Mathematics and Science teacher via his tutoring agency Arc Tutoring Services which he founded and operated in the SF BayArea.

As a Senior Creative Arts Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies, he founded the innovative music production platform Orka-M in Chennai in 2005-06, which was greatly infuenced by his research on and musical collaboration with South Indian temple musicians. Mehta’s ongoing relationship to Engineering and Architecture inspire his graphical drawings and paintings which serve as the basis of his compositional work for pieces with improvisers.

Mehta currently performs with his new quartet Sky Cage which premiered his piece by the same title at the Moers Festival 2020 ( Arte/Wdr Broadcast). He is currently working on a new piece for that group supported by a stipend from NRW. He also performs with Trio Inguru with his long-standing collaborator the London based cellist Rohan de Saram (Arditti String Quartet) and his son the drummer/percussionist Suren de Saram (Bombay Bicycle Club). He has performed, recorded, collaborated with some of the world’s most outstanding musicians from many genres including improvised music and jazz, European classical and contemporary, Indian classical and temple music such as Anthony Braxton, Mark Harvey and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra (Leo CDs Aardvark Steps out and Trumpet Madness), Paul Lovens (Rajesh Mehta solos and duos, Hatology CD Orka), Contemporary Music Cellist Rohan de Saram (Innovative Music Meeting CD, True Muze Records and Sounding Buildings DVD), South Indian master percussionist Professor Trichy Sankaran, Vlatko Kucan (Mehta Metric Ensemble, Between the Lines CD Reconfigurations). Other musicians he has worked with include: Ravichandra Kulur, Jayachanra Rao, Amelia Cuni, Robyn Schulkowsky, Chad Popple, Peter Niklas Wilson, Sandy Evans, Matthias Kaul, Daniel Ott, Felicity Provan, Joost Buis, Alan Purves, Tobias Delius, Marco Blauuw, Tristan Honsinger, Joe Williamson, Steve Heather, Ray Kaczynski, Aleks Kolkowski, Steve Noble, Viv Corringham, Jaap Blonk, Georges Emmanuel-Schneider, Marco Horvat, Bruno Caillat, Pavel Fajt, Keith Rowe, Keith O’Brien, Linda Buckley, Mick O’Shea and many others. He has also performed in many interdisciplinary projects with leading contemporary dancers/choreographers such as Sasha Waltz and Dominic Petit and Contemporary Indian dancers/choreographers Ramli Ibrahim and Shakuntala, poets such as Esther Dischereit, and sound artists such as Danny Mcarthy, Harry de Wit, and Hans Peter Kuhn.

Mehta’s visual works serve as musical scores and have been performed in concerts of international ensembles such as Face the Music Ensemble (New York City), and Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. These have also been the foundation for his productions Sounding Buildings which integrate architectural acoustics, moving musicians, projected still and moving images, and lm. He has worked closely with his wife the vocalist/voice trainer Barbara Friederichsen-Mehta on the following productions: Glucksman Art Gallery, University of Cork, Ireland in 2005; New Music/Theatre Festival Rümlingen, Switzerland 2006;

Norwegian Theatre Akademie Guest Professorship Workshop/Production with Scenography students 2009 and 2018 (with a solo performance at the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, Norway); Spring Workshop Hong Kong 2014. In 2002, he collaborated with architect Steven Holl on a MIT Simmons Hall DVD project, lectured, and performed in the design seminar of architect Daniel Libeskind at the HfG Karlsruhe. Mehta’s visual work has been included in various publications such as Notations 21 (by Theresa Sauer, Thames and Hudson Publishers); Beyond Notation (Leonardo Music Journal, MIT Press) and exhibited in Galleries such as: Nature Morte, Delhi, The Swiss Embassy, Delhi, and Apparao Galleries, Chennai. The Balmond Studio (London / Colombo), founded by renowned engineer/architect Cecil Blamond presented Mehta’s work in a feature interview for their online magazine T.I.P(“Thinking in Practice”) in February 2019.

My expression:
Music is a unique tool of expression for me which continues to allow me to synthesize my multicultural background as an Indian-American living in Germany and use my Engineering skills to create innovative instruments.

I have performed and recorded with some of the world’s outstanding musicians from many genres including improvised music and jazz, classical, contemporary and Indian music such as Paul Lovens (Hatology CD Orka), Contemporary Music Cellist Rohan de Saram ( Sounding Buildings DVD), and South Indian master percussionist Trichy Sankaran (Innovative Music Meeting CD). Some of the awards I have received include the Eloranta award from MIT, an Irish Arts council award to work with Irish sound artists in Cork, Ireland, and a Senior Creative Arts Fellowship Award from the American Institute of Indian Studies to work with South Indian Musicians guided by the great Carnatic singer Aruna Sairam in Chennai, India.

I'm thrilled to share my latest record releases, including the CD 'Malagasy Breath' with my Sky Cage Quartet on Subcontinental Records, featuring the extraordinary singing of Madagascan lemurs called Indri. Additionally explore the Vinyl EP 'Naga 7,' one of the solos on it titled 'Naga Red,' which is also the name of the music video directed by Suhfecto featuring Shivani Chakkarwar recently featured in the Rolling Stone magazine. Join me on this musical odyssey, where innovation meets the enchanting melodies of nature.