SANTOSH NAIDU
Is a Canadian ‘Platinum’ recording artist who has been in the music industry for over 20 years.
At the tender age of 5, he embraced the study of classical tabla under the tutelage of Ritesh Das and master Pundit Swapan Chaudhuri.
At the age of 14 he became a co-founding member of the Juno Nominated World Percussion group “Toronto Tabla Ensemble”. As a member of TTE, he performed all over North America at various music festivals, In 1999 he became assistant Artistic Director of TTE, a position he then held for 3 years
Mr Naidu continued to hone his craft. With his passion for classical Indian culture he began to study other South Asian folkloric instruments, and mastered the Dholak and Dhol.
After 10 years of perfecting his craft in the South Asian idiom, Santosh turned his eyes to Latin music and House music.
Santosh is now an accomplished musician in various genres, recording and writing for various artists, Base Is Base, Lal, Toronto Tabla Ensemble, I Mother Earth and The ROOTS too name just a few.
In 2001, Santosh joined Platinum and Grammy nominated recording artist K-OS as his lead percussionist and drummer and has written and performed with K-OS for the past 8 years. Santosh Naidu has been nominated for numerous awards including a Juno award and My Bindi Award.
Mr Naidu has performed with K-OS all over the world. His performances include:
The Montreal Jazz Festival; Good Vibrations In Australia; Edgefest 2007; ‘MTV Unplugged with K-OS’; David Letterman; MuchMusic; Virgin Music festival UK; Bugglepop Festival in Belgium; Coachella Music Festival; JUNO Awards; VH1 Unplugged; Warp Tour; Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Late show with Craig Fergison.
He has also performed with artists like Pundit Mukesh, Desai, CBC Radio Orchestra, Shambhu Das and Narendra Dater, Tea Party, Oasis, Nelly Furtado,The ROOTS and India Arie.
Santosh’s talents also include film, where he wrote the score for “Anamika” (2002) and added his musical talents to the Documentary film “Burning to Shine”(2006)
Santosh Naidu is also one half of a dynamic duo, better known as The Guru Bros. www.gurubrothers.com
The Guru Bros have expanded Naidu’s talents into live and recorded music events and productions for various Corporations at different musical venues.
GURTEJ HUNJAN
began his training as a tabla player at the tender age of 7. At 13 he was given the incredible opportunity to join the critically acclaimed, Juno Award nominated, world music band – The Toronto Tabla Ensemble, founded in 1991 by his tabla teacher Ritesh Das. Under the tutelage of Mr. Das Gurtej participated in numerous workshops with tabla master Pundit Swapan Chaudhuri. During his eight years with the ensemble Gurtej gained immense experience creating music and touring the Canadian Festival circuit with some of Canada’s most respected musicians such as George Koller, Ian DeSuza, Julie Michaels and Donald Quan, to name a few. In in 2000 the Ensemble was nominated for a Juno award in the category of best world music band.
During years while training to be a tabla player Gurtej began to learn other percussion instruments, such as the Dhol from North India, the drum kit and bongos. He also fell in love with the world of electronic music and began dj’ing and experimenting with electronic percussion.
In 2002 Gurtej accompanied The Tea Party across Canada for a concert tour of five major cities. In 2003 Gurtej joined the ground breaking artistic collective iDRUM and began performing regularly at Toronto’s most prestigious nightspots.
