Ash Chandola: New Music Plus
Commissioned by:
Southbank Centre
Event venue:
Southbank Centre
Find out more by visiting:
As the man behind the internationally acclaimed Swaraj club nights, musical impresario Ash Chandola has an impressive 12 year record in live music event programming, production and marketing. In recent years he has also established Swaraj Music as an artist management agency and is the man behind the rise of flute beatboxing innovator Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee (recently hitting the top 20 in the Guardian’s Viral Video charts).
Ash has also worked as a consultant for arts organisations as diverse as The Great Escape convention, British Council, PRS Foundation, London Mela Festival and Croydon Clocktower arts centre.Since leaving his job in the Marketing department of MTV Europe, where he co-ordinated the channel’s marketing of artist tours and festivals, his work has focussed predominantly, but not exclusively, around Alternative Asian artists based in the UK and in India – where he has been touring artists for the past seven years. In this time Ash also completed his own journey from promoter through to DJ, artist and finally manager.
Since it’s birth at the legendary Blue Note club in Hoxton Square, London in 1997, Ash has developed Swaraj into one of the longest running leftfield music events in the UK and a brand with a reputation for high quality, innovative collaborative work and high production values. Swaraj events have taken place regularly across the world in India, South Africa, Italy, Canada, U.S, Venezuala and Mexico, and have played a major role in launching the careers of BBC Radio 1’s Bobby Friction and Shiva Soundsystem.
Reflecting Ash’s own artistic tastes and heritage, the Swaraj brand remains musically eclectic and increasingly cross-disciplinary in its nature as it moves away from its dance music roots under the influence of the UK Hip Hop, Beatbox and Indie scenes.
The Swaraj club night, with Ash at the helm as ever, will be returning to London on a regular basis later in 2009…watch this space.
“I see New Music Plus as a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a long term relationship with both PRSF and South Bank Centre, and hopefully some of the other arts institutions and producers chosen for the programme too.
As an event producer, while keeping music at the centre of my work, I want to experiment with more cross-disciplinary work to produce exciting collaborations and new music. I also want to produce regular events in larger and higher profile venues and festivals. I hope New Music Plus will facilitate this by helping me to develop my existing ideas while exposing me to a wide range of artists and producers across many art forms.
I am sure that New Music Plus will be creatively rewarding and inspire me to produce ambitious work of greater quality.”