Surendran Reddy

Surendran Reddy (9 March 1962 – 22 January 2010) was a South African composer and pianist. After his studies at the Royal College of Music and King’s College in London he had a highly successful international career as a classical and jazz pianist. He invented his own new musical style called “clazz” in which he fuses classical, jazz, South African mbaqanga and other world music elements. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works. Biography Surendran Reddy was born in Durban, South Africa, on 9 March 1962. He grew up in Zimbabwe where he started his musical career at an early age. He studied piano at the Rhodesian Academy of Music in Bulawayo and already did concert tours as a classical pianist at the age of 13. At 15 he won a scholarship which took him to the Royal College of Music in London where he studied from 1977 to 1981 with inter alia Bernard Roberts and Yonty Solomon (piano), George Malcolm (harpsichord), Virginia Pleasants (forte piano), Anthony Milner (Harmony and counterpoint). From 1981 to 1982 he studied musicology at King’s College, London University with inter ali