Like father

Late music composer Aadesh Shrivastava’s son Avitesh has been making waves with his recently launched debut music video Main Hua Tera.  The video is directed by Remo D’Souza and is produced by international musicians Giorgio Tuinfort and Marcus Van Wattum. With the official release of the video by actor Amitabh Bachchan and collaboration with established artists, Avi hopes to establish himself as an international artist in near future. Speaking about working with big artists on his first project, he says, “My journey has been greatly influenced by musical collaborations. It was a great learning experience working with senior artists like Remo Sir and Grammy award winner Giorgio Tuinfort. They saw the potential in me and chose to collaborate with me on their tracks. They believed that I could represent India internationally and become the youngest crossover artist from the country. When I first met Uncle Giorgio after dad’s demise, I showed him the English version of Main Hua Tera that I have produced with an internationally renowned music producer Gemini. He said that this song had great potential, which is when Main Hua Tera was born. After coming back to India, I met Uncle Remo and made him listen to the song and he loved it and decided to choreograph the music video.”

After finishing school, Avi went on to learn music at the Hollywood Music Academy in LA and also did short acting courses and workshops in India and from the New York Film Academy. “My musical career started when I was about 11 years old. I used to love being in the studio with my dad, learning about music production and trying my hand at composing and singing my own tracks. I remember performing for the first time in my life with Sean Wyclef at Hard Rock Cafe and realised my passion for music. After I performed with Akon in front of 30,000 people, I was even more convinced of my dream of becoming an artist. As a child, I was always surrounded by music. After my music launch, I will be releasing a few more song collaborations with international artists, which I am very excited about. This was my dad’s lifelong dream and I want to fulfill it first. Later, I want to move onto following my mother’s footsteps into acting in films. It will be a dream coming true for her,” says the musician who worked as an Assistant Director in Piku.

Thanks to his father’s legacy, Avi received blessings from several maestros of music at a very young age. Speaking about his relationship with his dad, he says, “He was different at home and at the studio. At home, he was my father who pampered me and guided me with all my problems whereas, at work, he was my mentor who I’ve learned everything from about singing, music production and learning musical instruments. Every day in the studio was special, as I felt so proud and mesmerized listening to him sing and compose such soulful tracks. He taught me so much and I wish he would be here to see his hard work bearing fruit today.”

Avi aims to bring in a positive change by having crossovers of international artists in India, and has a keen interest in Western music. Despite chalking out a career plan for himself, he still feels pressure. “I feel a lot of pressure coming from a house surrounded by talented artists. I spend my days and even nights in the studio at times. I could have started right away with my collaboration music in the US, but I wanted to lay my foundation in Bollywood first as the warm music fraternity here loves me and always showers me with blessings. I wanted to start here and be among the artists that I have been inspired by ever since I started out. I don’t want to ever produce substandard quality work. I want to, and intend to work with only those people who have similar respect for music, and are with me to go all out to bring about a change in the industry without ever compromising on quality,” sums up Avi.