Award: Christchurch musician makes waves in India
(caption for the above picture: Justin James of 4 Musics at the 19th Asianet Film Awards ceremony after winning the best music direction award for 2016)
Justin James, who moved to Christchurch from Kerala in India in 2008, and works as the Supply Chain Manager at Wimpex Ltd, is now one of the hottest property in the music business of India's regional Malayalam film industry.
This after, 4 Musics - the music composing team of James and his three childhood friends - won the award for best music direction of 2016 for the regional movie Oppam on January 20, 2017.
James, and his friends, are now working on four more confirmed projects, with many more in the pipeline.
On how he manges to communicate with his team [the other three are based in India], Justin says, "We make full use of technology – exchanging musical notes through whatsapp, having team meetings through skype and facetime."
"Our journey started with singing in the church choir when we were all kids. Over time, making music became our passion and we had set ourselves the goal of becoming film music composers. Now that is happening, we want to be known as someone who create melodies," James concluded.
A DJ-turned Punjabi music composer released his first video song this weekend
Ajay Sharma is a man well-known in Christchurch’s Indian community for all the heart-pumping music he has provided at various celebrations since 2013. Now, the popular DJ has decided to step up his game and venture into the field of composing music.
Recreating a hit Punjabi song Duja Aunda Sardar, Sharma released the video [shot in Christchurch and Auckland] on February 17, on all popular music platforms including YouTube, Saavn, Amazon, Spotify, iTunes and a popular Punjabi music streaming website geetmp3.com.
