Manifesto

Information on Water Lily Acoustics

Water Lily Acoustics is a Grammy Award winning record label, which for the past twenty-five years has striven to archive the great masters and virtuosos of both the East and the West. Founded in 1984 by Kavi Alexander, this small, independent company has succeeded in preserving for posterity, the artistry of numerous master musicians from around the globe, to great acclaim. The releases of Water Lily Acoustics, are prized by the connoisseurs and the cognoscenti, for the verisimilitude with which they render the music.

From its inception, Water Lily Acoustics had laid great emphasis on the virtuosos of the Eastern world and in capturing their art in its purest form. The reason for this, stemmed from the dire fact that the great Eastern musicians had seldom been recorded properly, with care and attention placed on sound quality and thus, most recordings of the Eastern masters, unlike those of their counterparts in the West, were of mediocre quality at best. That this goal has been realized fully can be gleamed from the numerous reviews Water Lily Acoustics as garnered worldwide, from music and audio journals, which stand as proof.

Water Lily Acoustics has become synonymous with pristine sound quality and its recordings are viewed as bearing a unique faithfulness to the original music source. This goal has been achieved by utilizing proper microphone techniques, state-of-the-art recording equipment and scrupulously selecting the acoustically most suitable venues for recoding, those, which possess acoustics that enhance the music to be recorded.

Water Lily Acoustics has also gained a reputation for its innovative pairings of musicians from diverse cultures, who normally would never perform together. Water Lily Acoustics was the very first to pair and record Indian musicians, of both the Karnatic and Hindustani schools, with their Persian, Arab and Chinese counterparts, a trend copied by others much later.

All our recordings are offered with the highest fidelity sound, stylish graphics and extensive and informative notes on the music represented and its history.

You may kindly visit our web site at www.waterlilyacoustics.com and see for yourself, the caliber of artists recorded to date. While on the site, it is recommend that one also view the page titled "Forthcoming Titles". This will show the real extent of the Water Lily Acoustic catalog, as all the titles listed therein, have been recorded and mastered, but are yet to be released. In fact, this page, not having been updated in a while, has yet to list the recording of Ustad Zia Fariddudin Dagar, that of HRH The Maharani of Jaipur and the three recordings of the Hungarian National Philharmonic.

Water Lily Acoustics, has to date recorder the following Indian master musicians: Padmavibushan Ustad Dr. Ali Akbar Khan, Padmabushan Professor V.G. Jog, Padmavibushan Pandit Jesraj, Padmabushan Dr. N. Ramani, Ustad Imrat Khan, Ustad Zia Fariddudin Dagar, Padmashri Dr. L Subramaniam, Padmashri V. M. Bhatt, Padmashri Kadri Gopalnath, Padmashri Ustad Rashid Khan, Chitravina N. Ravikiran, Swapan Chaudhuri, Guruvayur Dorai and T. H. Subashchandran.

Of the younger generation of luminaries, the following musicians have been recorded as well: Dr. V. Balaji, Pandit Ronu Majumdar, Sukhvinder Singh Namdari, Abhijit Banerjee, Druba Ghosh, J.G.R. Krishnan, Thiagarajan Ramani, Shweta Jhaveri, Viji Krishnan and Sangeetha Shankar. Many of the master musicians listed above, aside from being the very finest from India, have further, been honored by the Indian government with the highest civilian awards.

South American, Asian and African master musicians record by Water Lily Acoustics are as follows: Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, Sharafat Ali Khan, Shafkat Ali Khan (Pakistan), Dom Un Ramao, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Jose Neto (Brazil), Alex Blake (Panama), Jie Bing Chen, Wu Man (China), Saug-Won Park (South Korea), Drepung Loseling Monks (Tibet), Hamza el Din (Sudan), Papa Bunko Susso (Gambia), Simon Shaheen (Palestine), Kim Sinh (Vietnam), Abdellattif Belharrat (Morocco), Mevelavi Ensemble (Turkey), Usted Hossein Alizadeh, Arshad Tahmasebi, Madjid Khalaj, Haj Ghorban Soleimani (Iran) and Jorge Strunz (Costa Rica).

Symphony orchestras recorded by Water Lily Acoustics to date: The Philadelphia Orchestra (Maestro Wolfgang Sawallisch), The Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Maestro Yuri Temirkanov), The Saint Petersburg Symphony Orchestra (Maestro Alexander Dmitriev) and The Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra (Maestro Zoltan Kocsis).

Prominent North American and European musicians recorder by Water Lily Acoustics to date: Ruggiero Ricci (US), Brooks Smith (US), Grant Gershon (US), Garry Woodward (US), Roger Lebow (US), Emma Lou Dimer (US), Jacky Terrasson (France), Chico Freeman (US), Ry Cooder (US), Taj Mahal (US), Bela Fleck (US), Jerry Douglas (US), Edger Meyer (US), Jon Hassell (US), David Hidalgo (US), Larry Coryell (US), James Newton (US), Martin Simpson (UK) and Teddy Tierup (Denmark). Many of the above listed musicians are multiple Grammy Award winners.

All the above-mentioned artists were produced and recorded by Kavi Alexander and the music released on Water Lily Acoustics.

Recordings released by Water Lily Acoustics have been nominated twice for the prestigious Grammy Award, with one of these nominations resulting in a win. Further, two other recordings done by Kavi Alexander, one for a major label and another for an independent label, were also nominated for the Grammy Award, with one of these also winning the coveted award.

Kavi Alexander has also recorded the following renowned musicians for various other record labels: Art Blakey, Bobby Watson, Wynton Marsalis, Pops Staples, Paramount Singers, Rev. Frank Wright, John Tchicai, Derek Bailey, David Lindly, Henry Kaiser, Purna Das Baul, Asha Putri, Tejandra Majumdar, Snehashish Majumdar and Ramash Misra.

For the Taiwanese label Wind Records, Kavi Alexander has made over thirty recordings of the leading virtuosos of China and Taiwan.

(www.windmusic.com.tw/en/pro_list.asp).

To date, music from recordings released by Water Lily Acoustics, have been featured in the sound tracks of the following six major Hollywood films:

“Dead Man Walking”. (Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon).

“Two Days in the Valley”. (Danny Aiello, Charlize Theron).

“Primary Colors”. (John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton).

“Angel Eyes”. (Jennifer Lopez, James Caviezel).

“One Hour Photo”. (Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen).

“Meet the Fockers”. (Robert de Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand)

As well in the Jon Bon Jovi documentary “The Circle”.

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