The Av1 (Avi Kishna)

Born: 05.12.1978
Place of birth: Suriname, South America
Nationality: Dutch
Categories: Musician, Music Producer

1978-1990
The Av1 is born in a family of talented and creative people. At a young age his father started teaching him keyboards and piano. At the age of 9 he took lessons in western classical music and played Cello. But his roots draw him back to his Indian origin. Inspired by his cousin Siddharth Kishna , who is a well known Sitar artist, The Av1 got acquainted with Indian classical music on the Sarod. It was the renowned Guru Koustuv Ray from whom he had his lessons in Indian classical music. Guru Koustuv Ray became his musical guide, inspirator, teacher and friend.

1990-2000
At the age of 16 The Av1 was invited by his Guru to join the Rotterdam Conservatorium (now Codarts) in the Netherlands, which opened up a new faculty. He passed the admitting exam resplendently and was the youngest student at that time.

Besides his passion for Sarod, The Av1 was asked by his father to be the music director and producer for a epic play in a theater production of his father. It was the first time ever that not only The Av1 got acquainted with the ins and outs of producing, but Guru Koustuv Ray sang on the Music arranged by his student The Av1!

2000-2010
Around the age of 22 The Av1 made a drastic decision and took the risk of becoming an entrepreneur within the corporate industry. Unfortunately he had to leave his music behind. It was now time to develop himself in a corporate and more international level. In the time span of 10 years he developed himself not only as a entrepreneur, but as a successful business man as well. In this period he excelled on many levels in business, traveled all over the world! In 2008 The Av1 became manager of the year.

In 2010 he was confronted with the ever changing situations in life. He unfortunately had to close down his business due to a variety of circumstances and he and his wife broke up their marriage.

2011- onward

Music is his destiny.

These unfortunate situations opened up his creative spirit and unleashed his musical talents. After this decade of experiences gained all over the world, he came across a wide range of different music styles, genres and identities. This inspired him to use his still broadening musical horizon to develop himself not just as a solo classical Sarod player, but now as a new breed of music producers. Although he is only starting to produce, just recently, some renowned singers, musicians already noticed his qualities.

Believing like many other major global artist say: “There will eventually be only one genre, as the world becomes smaller, more influences will cross each other and will be an example of how the world should be”.

Therefore The Av1 is music and music is his World…