Kuldeep Pai
Kuldeep Muralidhar Pai, best known as Kuldeep M Pai, is an Indian musician, composer, Carnatic music vocalist, and music producer.
His videos are mainly performed by children and are released under his own recording label, Chith Studios.
Early life and education
Pai was born in the Thammanam neighborhood in the heart of Kochi city in Kerala state to V. S. Vijayakumari and G. Muralidhar Pai. His mother tongue is Konkani. He has a younger sister.Pai completed his schooling in St. Jude's school, CCPLM Anglo Indian High School and Pre-university course at Cochin College, Kerala. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Computer Applications in BPC College Piravom, Kochi. He won the 'Kala Pratibha' Award in the Mahatma Gandhi University Youth Festival in 1999.
He was a gold medalist in Masters of Indian Classical Music at University of Madras and also holds a Diploma in Sound Engineering.
He was formally trained by N. P. Ramaswamy, Antony and O. S. Thiagarajan in Carnatic vocals; Hariharan in Violin and Ramamurthy in Western Classical Piano. He learned Mridangam from four masters: Dennis, Vaikom S. Gopakumar, Kalamandalam Krishnankutty, and Mannargudi Easwaran. He is a self-taught player of harmonium and flute.
Career
In 2002, Pai moved from Kochi to Chennai along with his family, to begin his career. His voice was praised by P. Vijayambika, though T. T. Narendran said of one concert that "the image of the raga eluded him".He established a career as a singer of Carnatic music. He has accompanied the singers O. S. Arun, S. Janaki, and Vani Jairam on harmonium for nearly 300 concerts since 2014. He has also sung for Indian classical dance performances for almost eleven years. He has also provided vocal support for few Indian jingles. From 2015, he began performing online.
Pai is an Ashtavadhani, His album Adviteeya is an experimental album in Carnatic genre where he has sung to his own live accompaniments of violin, mridangam, ghatam, kanjira, tabla, harmonium and melodica. This album was released by his guru O. S. Thyagarajan on 22 November 2006 in Chennai, and singer S. Janaki received the first copy.