Karishmeh Felfeli

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Karishmeh Felfeli-Crawford
Also known as Kay
Origin Pune, India
Genre(s) Classical, contemporary, Electronic, Fusion
Occupation(s) Pianist, Artistic Director, educator and promoter.
Instrument(s) Piano, Voice
Website www.karishmeh.com

Karishmeh Felfeli-Crawford is a pianist, educator and Artistic Director of Sarabande - The Glenn Gould Project which is based in Dublin, Ireland. Karishmeh divides her time between Westport,Co Mayo and Dublin, Ireland.

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[edit] Early Years

Karishmeh Felfeli-Crawford was born in Pune,India to Persian Zoroastrian parents, where she began her studies with Australian pianist Enid Roberts at the age of five. Following a period of studies in piano performance with Veera Pooniwala, during which she completed all her Grade and Certificate Examinations with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and Trinity College London. Unlike many great western classical musicians originally from India such as Zubin Mehta, also a PersianZoroastrian, Karishmeh was not born into a family of musicians, on the contrary, her parents did not even own a piano till Karishmeh turned fourteen (by which stage she had reached an advanced level of piano performance). In spite of an unconventional background, and a fairly normal upbringing, as a student of St Helena's High School, Pune, Karishmeh thrived as one of the school's most talented students. She excelled in Piano Performance, Singing, Drama, Debating, and won many prizes and accolades for both her school, and Junior College at state and national level. She had performed as a pianist, accompanist and singer, at the country's most prestigious concert venue, The Tata Theatre at the The National Centre for the Performing Arts by the age of 14.

She also became very involved in the outdoors, trekking, mountaineering and adventure sports at the age of twelve, a passion that often conflicted with her development as a young musician. She is reported to have nearly given up playing the piano, when asked to choose between appearing for her Performer's Certificate in Piano, or travel to the Nepal Himalayas for an expedition in the Everest region at the age of sixteen. She chose to travel to Nepal, and was the youngest member of a team of six fellow climbers from Mumbai, India.

By the age of 17, Karishmeh was one of Pune's most well known young musicians, and a regularperformer at concerts and festivals throughout the country. She was especially in demand as an accompanist and choral director. By the age of 18, Karishmeh was asked to join the faculty of one of Pune's most illustrious Private Schools - an all boys establishment, The Bishops School, Pune Her age notwithstanding, her qualifications and public profile as a young musician and educator meant that she was the youngest member to join the school's faculty.

[edit] Performance and Teaching Career

Upon obtaining a scholarship to study in America, in Houston, Texas, where her teachers were Mary Warwick and Kathleen Knight and later in Oberlin, Ohio, Karishmeh participated in numerous festivals and performances. She has performed in the National Concert Hall (Dublin), Goethe Recital Room (Dublin), Katherine Brennan Hall (RIAM, Dublin), Oberlin Conservatory, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, Hereford Cathedral, England, the Birmingham Conservatoire, University College London and the Freemasons Hall in Limerick. In Europe, Karishmeh continued her studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Dearbhla Collins in Dublin, and with Graeme Humphrey, and Philip Fowke in London, England. In Dublin, Ireland, where Karishmeh has been based for nearly six years, she has single handedly managed to create excitement and awareness about the benefits of music education and music performance to children and all adults.

As a teacher of piano performance, Karishmeh has provided her own students with numerous performance opportunities, masterclasses and workshops. Her own diverse interests in music have resulted in her students benefiting from a more all-around, holistic music education, rather than a strictly conservatoire-style training. Karishmeh has often spoken out against the notion that only conservatoire trained students can pursue careers as performers or educators, as she cites herself as a prime example of someone who has pursued a career in the music business without a conventional background. She spends her time in Dublin, Westport Co Mayo, and Ottawa, Canada.

[edit] Karishmeh and Glenn Gould

Karishmeh describes Canadian pianistGlenn Gould as a personal musical icon, a creative thinker, an extraordinary musician, writer and someone who constantly challenged the evolving yet stagnant world of classical music. Her musical development and journey was transformed when, age thirteen, she heard a Gould recording for the first time in India.

As an extraordinarily young Gould scholar and researcher, Karishmeh's work has already resulted in younger generations knowing more about Glenn Gould, particularly in Ireland and the UK. In 2007 and early 2008, she collaborated with RTE Radio 1 on two documentaries on the life and musical ideas of Glenn Gould. Her contributions on the RTE Radio 1 series Sound Stories, also featured the musical ideas of Glenn Gould.

In 2007, she also travelled to Toronto and Ottawa for the Glenn Gould Conference, which was organised by The Glenn Gould Foundation and The Estate of Glenn Gould, where she met Glenn Gould's closest friends and colleagues. In 2008, she will return to Ottawa, with support from Culture Ireland, to perform and conduct a Lecture-Recital/Masterclass on the Keyboard Music of Johann Sebastian Bach, with students of Carleton UniversityOttawa, to commemorate the Year of Glenn Gould. Karishmeh will also perform on Glenn Gould's own Steinway CD318 piano at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, as part of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.

[edit] Sarabande- The Glenn Gould Project

The objective of Karishmeh's Glenn Gould Project is to promote music education, and raise awareness of the life and legacy of Glenn Gould. Sarabande - The Glenn Gould Project serves as a Performance Society, and promotes music education, particularly amongst young people, and provides young musicians with exciting public performance opportunities and a platform to showcase their diverse musical talents.

Recognising the need for more informal public performance opportunities for young musicians in Dublin, Karishmeh developed a series of lecture-recitals (admission free) at first, for her own students, at the historic Georgian House venue of the Goethe Auditorium in Dublin's Merrion Square. Her ambition to do away with the egocentric, tedious classical concert experience, and replace it with a more exciting and engaging concert experience has found an army of supporters in Dublin. In spite of no financial backing from any source, Karishmeh has continued to produce and perform in lecture-recitals which question and challenge the conventions of the classical concert experience, and present the audience with a fresh perspective on the music being performed. In 2006, Karishmeh founded Sarabande -The Glenn Gould Project, a performance project that aimed to promote music education through exciting and less intimidating lecture-recitals. Recently, her sold-out recital on the life and music of Glenn Gould, as well as "Of Songs and Sonnets", a recital on Early Music at Dublin's most prestigious classical concert venue, The National Concert Hall, were extremely successful, with the majority of audience goers under the age of forty. She also put up similar recitals around Ireland (Wexford, Waterford, Galway) and England.

The Glenn Gould Projectalso provides a professional public performance platform for up and coming young musicians who would benefit from the experience and exposure a public recital provides. The Glenn Gould Project upcoming recitals will take place at the National Concert Hall, Dublin (June 3rd 2008) featuring Nicola Mulligan, Ruth Finlay, David O'Shea, Tim Healy Kavanagh and Catherine Farrell, Wexford Arts Center, Goethe Auditorium (An die Musik - Great German Composers) as well as abroad (Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival).

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