Lydian Nadhaswaram (born 6 September 2005) is an Indian pianist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and actor. His music incorporates a combination of Indian music, jazz and elements from other musical genres, and often features extensive use of re-harmonisations. He is the one and only Indian Musician to appear on the American talk show "The Ellen DeGeneres". He is also the title winner of the American Competition
"CBS The World's Best". The competition had contestants from 195 countries and lydian represented India and won a whopping $1 million dollar prize!
Lydian is also known for his technological musical explorations too! He was the youngest boy to perform in the iPad GeoShred app and youngest to play AeroDrums which is a portable drums that lets you play in Air!
Lydian's family :
Father : Varshan - Singer, Composer, Flutist, Keyboardist.
Mother : Jhansi - Housewife
Elder Sister : Amirthavarshini - Singer, Flutist, Composer
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Lydian started his career when he was 2 years old as a drummer.
On January 29th 2007 lydian picked up a xylophone stick and box and started to play a complicated controlled triplet beat on that box! His sister and dad saw his playing and couldn't believe their eyes! They were awestruck to see a 2 year old child playing a triplet beat for more than 30-40 minutes continuously.
Varshan bought him a baby sized drum kit the very next day. Lydian learnt a lot of rudiments and patterns in that drum kit and within one year, varshan bought him a full sized drum kit !
Lydian initially learnt drums from Mr. Maynard Grant who is the son of Veteran Indian Drummer Mr. Noel Grant. Mr. Maynard taught him a lot of patterns and groomed him to be a professional performer by the age of 4!
Lydian then went on to perform with his father in many stages across India. When he was 4 years old, Lydian along with his family went to Australia and they performed in Sydney and Melbourne and Lydian became one of the youngest drummers to ever perform in a full concert!
When he was 8 years old, Lydian won the POGO award for Indian best youngest drummer. Lydian was not only interested in drums, but also in many Indian percussion instruments like Mridangam, Tabla, Kanjira, Thavil and more. Lydian started learning Mridangam when he was 8 and he was already unstoppable in that too! He performed in a lot of south indian classical concerts and was praised by many Mridangam Maestros!
Lydian was one of the first kid in chennai to stop to do home schooling! Lydian and his father always wanted to do full time music.
Lydian joint KM Music Conservatory which was founded by Legendary Composer and 2 time Academy Award & Grammy Award Winner "Dr. A.R. Rahman" in Chennai, India.
Lydian learnt "Tabla" there for a couple of months. He was the youngest student there during 2014. He use to roam around the campus and make friends with elder musicians and explore different forms of music and technology.
Lydian's dad showed him a YouTube video of a chinese piano prodigy Tsung Tsung playing the piece "Flood Time". Lydian was absolutely stunned and developed a never ending passion and love for Piano!
Varshan, bought a piano for Amirthavarshini during 2014 in which
Lydian started to play and practice in that piano.
Meanwhile Lydian was very impressed by the Russian Piano method which was taught by Dr. Surojeet Chatterji at KM. Lydian learnt few pieces from Dr.Chatterji and stunned A.R.Rahman with his playing!
Lydian also developed his Perfect Pitch sense and also the ability to play any piece Blindfolded!
Lydian also learnt piano from Dr.Augustine Paul who is a veteran music tutor in Chennai. Lydian did his 5th & 8th Grade Trinity College of London Piano Examinations under Dr. Augustine Paul and was the top scorer in whole of India!
Lydian slowly started to pick up other instruments such as Guitar, Bass Guitar, Harmonica, Violin, Mandolin, Veena, Classical Guitar, Melodica, Thavil, Ghatam and more.
Lydian says : I always wanted to compose and to do something creative in music. A composer who wants to explore lot of genres, should have the basic knowledge and should know how to handle instruments and know basic instrumentations to conduct an orchestra.
But Lydian played all the instruments masterfully!
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Lydian's father always used to follow Hollywood TV Producers who worked for Ellen, Little Big Shots, The Real, Simpre Ninos and More...
Varshan didn't believe in competitions anymore because of a Terrible Experience that they had at India's Got Talent in 2013.
Lydian's father always used to follow Hollywood TV Producers who worked for Ellen, Little Big Shots, The Real, Siempre Niños and More...
Varshan didn't believe in competitions anymore because of a Terrible Experience they had at India's Got Talent in 2013.
During 2017, Lydian stepped into The United States of America for the first time. He was invited by the famous TV Host "Don Francisco" to participate in the NBC Telemundo Network show "Siempre Niños". After seeing Lydian's dazzling performance, he was also invited again the very next month for the same show!
After Siempre Niños, Lydian was invited all the way to New York City by the former head of TED and movie producer "Juliet Blake". She and her husband Mark Shepard hosted Lydian and introduced them to the epic "Novogratz Family" in NYC. Lydian Performed in the Novogratz House Party along with 2 other veteran jazz pianists. After witnessing Lydian's Performance, Mr. Michael Novogratz (CEO of Galaxy and Billionaire) lifted Lydian up his shoulders and made an announcement that he will be gifting a Steinway Piano to Lydian on his Birthday (Sep 6 2017).
As he promised, He gifted Lydian a brand new Steinway piano all the way from NYC to Chennai India. It was a door to door gift and costed more than $200,000!
Lydian started to level up his skill by practicing twice as hard in his brand new Steinway! He learnt lot of genres and different styles in piano.
One fine day, Varshan gets an email from one of the producers from the TV shows that he used to follow. Lydian got invited to the first and only edition of the 2019 CBS The World's Best Competition.
Varshan didn't encourage lydian to go and participate in competitions. But, this one was different! From lydian's 2nd year, varshan always use to say the word "World's Best". So they both didn't want to miss this golden opportunity. And lydian went on to practice and prepare himself for this epic competition! He just had one month time!
World's Best had contestants from 195 countries and it had no age limits. It was a multi-art competition too! This was held in Los Angeles, California.
65 countries were present there, and the rest got eliminated through videos and social medias. Lydian was the only contestant who represented India!
The show had 3 American judges and 50 live judges from 50 different countries.
The competition happened for a month and every weekend there were shoots. Apart from coming to the studio, Lydian always stayed in his hotel room practicing for more than 14-15 hours a day in a normal electric piano that the World's Best Team Provided.
Audition Round:
Lydian cleared the first round " Audition Round" with his dazzling fast playing on piano. He played the Flight of the Bumblebee in 3 different speeds and amazed the judges.
He played in 160 bpm, 208 bpm, and in 325 bpm which left the judges awestruck! Lydian always was a fan of "Drew Barrymore" who was one of the Main American Judges. He invited her to the stage and made her to set the manual metronome to the fastest speed which was 208 bpm. And then he told them that he can play even more faster and played in 320 bpm using a electronic metronome!
Battle Round :
Lydian wanted to take it slow and steady this time, but also with a magic at the end!
Battle round is a face to face act with his competitor "Enkh" from mongolia who is a Country Singer. Enkh was always right in front of lydian when he was performing and lydian was watching when Enkh was performing too! So that if one of them makes a mistake, the opponent can point it out and eliminate them from the competition. So Lydian took it as a challenge and played the piano Blindfolded! He also gave a little tribute to Drew Barrymore by playing the famous E.T. Theme by John Williams. The judges were stunned and so was Enkh! Lydian won the Battle Round!
Championship Round :
In Championship Round, Lydian went face to face with the Kazhagisthan Singer
"Daneliya Tuleshova"
Lydian again did something special in the championship round. He gave the judges and audiences a treat with Famous Hollywood Theme Mashups!
He also played Harry Potter and Mission impossible themes simultaneously on either hands, which wowed everyone!
And Lydian won the Championship round!
Semi Final :
Lydian played the moonlight sonata 3rd movement and recorded it live.
he came down from the piano stage and announced that he has a surprise for everyone. The crew brought a drum set to him and Lydian played the recording of the piano and accompanied with Drums! The judges were awestruck! He also played a little drum solo after that which was mind blowing!
Final :
Lydian played the epic chopin etude in 2 different pianos which he just practiced for 1 day! He went face to face with the South Korean Martial Arts team "Kukkiwon" which was a 30 member team! Lydian was a solo artist!
Lydian got 47 points from the American Judges and Kukkiwon got 50 points from the American Judges...But when it came to 50 world judges votes, Lydian got a whopping 87 points and won the competition!
Lydian then got invited to the Ellen DeGeneres Show as a guest! He played the Mozart's Turkish March blindfolded and stunned the audience! and got a blazer with a moon on the back from Ellen as a gift, as Lydian's dream was to play on the moon one day!
Lydian and his family's dream came true and lydian got his first big break!
He got a right platform to prove himself to this world!
Lydian says : America has given me a special name and a special place and everyone's heart! On behalf of my country and family, I thank the great United States of America!
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Dr. A.R. Rahman felicitated lydian once he returned from Los Angeles by conducting a Gala at his KM Music Conservatory. He invited the press, journalists, family members, and students and teachers of KM and hosted the GALA!
Lydian was unstoppable from then! He performed in a lot of concerts and got all the latest instruments that he needed for his composition and creative career. He always had a passion for cars too, so his dad bought him a BMW X3 which is still with them till date and hold a special place in their hearts!
Lydian performed with the legendary singer "S.P.Balasubramaniyam" in Malaysia which was SPB's final overseas concert. SPB also sang a song for lydian which is still unreleased. it will be out soon!
After his won at the World's best,
Lydian acted in a Hindi Bollywood-Musical movie called
Atkan Chatkan.
Lydian played the main character and won the Best Actor Award from South London Film Festival and Jaipur Film Festival.
Lydian was also invited by his godfather who gifted him the Steinway piano "Mr.Michael Novogratz" all the way to New York to perform along with the great Tony Bennet and Harry Belafonte at the historic venue Apollo Theatre. at Harlem.
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2020 and the lockdown starts!
During the lockdown, Lydian along with his sister and dad started to recreate the legendary composer Maestro Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja's old songs with new sound and original interpretation.
They uploaded videos in youtube of his songs every day without fail for about a month! His biggest recreation was Ilaiyaraaja's Thiruvaasagam.
Thiruvaasagam is an symphonic tamil album by Ilaiyaraaja. Lydian, his sister and father recreated that masterpiece within 3 days and uploaded in YouTube... The composer himself saw the video and he video called lydian's family and appreciated them for the work and also offered a song to lydian to arrange on which was composed by Ilaiyaraaja and sung by S.P.Balasubramaniyam. The song was about covid and was dedicated to covid workers.
Later in 2021, Lydian became the first Indian Pianist to perform in the Dubai Expo 2020 along with A.R.Rahman's Firdaus Orchestra...
Lydian also was awarded with the National Music Award "Sur Jyotsna" in 2021 for his excellence in music.
in 2022, Lydian became the first and only student of Maestro Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja. They both discuss a lot of things musically and spiritually...
Lydian also started to learn jazz from the berklee graduate "Ron Cha" during 2022 february...
He use to compose a new jazz tune for every lesson and discussion that he goes and has with Ilaiyaraaja. In 12 classes, he finished 12 songs and made that a Jazz Standalone Album!
Yes, His debut album was a jazz album called "Chromatic Grammatic"
He composed 12 songs in 12 different keys and collaborated with some of the best jazz musicians in the world like Dave Weckl, Eric Marienthal and Frank Gambale, Mohini dey, Gino Banks, B.C. Manjunath and more!
He also submitted that to the Grammys!
His album got a lot of recognition in the States between Jazz Communities and was appreciated by Jazz Legends!
Lydian performed in the Chess Olympiad 2022 which was the highlight of the entire event! He once again became a sensation globally!
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2023 to 2024
2023 was an excited year for lydian. He performed with Maestro Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja at the G20 festival, He performed in the States, Australia and many more places...
He is now doing a independent indian album called "Celestials" which is inspired from the band Shakti, whom he is also collaborating with!
Lydian and sister are now doing a Tamil Language Epic Project called
"THE THIRUKKURAL 1330" which is 1330 Tamil couplets written by the great poet "Thiruvalluvar" 3000 years back!
They are bringing it to life with their music and collaborating with 1000 singers all around the globe.
Lydian is also doing a film which is directed by the Malayalam Superstar "Mohanlal" called "Barroz" which will be releasing in late 2024...
Exciting project are releasing soon!
Stay Tuned...
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