Peter Cat Recording Co (pictured) won the Rs 50,000 cash prize at the Toto Funds The Arts 2012 music award. The New Delhi boys edged past a talented shortlist of contenders such as Noush Like Sploosh, Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets and Dualist Inquiry. The jurors for this year’s awards were novelist and musician, Jeet Thayil (of Sridhar/Thayil); ethnomusicologist and Western classical violinist, Chloe L. Coventry; and music editor, writer and composer for theatre productions and short films, Samar Grewal.
Although, the number of applicants for the award this year was relatively low (only 35 acts submitted their music this time around), the jurors remarked about the high quality of the music they had to judge.
With bands like Peter Cat Recording Company around, instances (of which) one finds oneself thoughtlessly lamenting the many platitudes of the ‘Indian band sound’ will surely come rarer. As most of the eight entries long-listed this year showed us, sound, whatever it may have been, is in for an overhaul in the coming years. Let these guys show the way.
This is the eighth edition of the awards and it took place in Bangalore on January 12. It’s dedicated to Angirus ‘Toto’ Vellani who was passionate about music, literature and film, and wanted to encourage young artists in India through awards, workshops and other events. He died in a tragic accident in 2004.
The awards cover four categories in the arts which are music, creative writing in Kannada, creative writing in English (two awardees) and photography (two awardees). Check out the winners in the other categories below.
Creative writing in Kannada: Kavya Kadame
Creative writing in English: Ramneek Singh and Joshua Muwiya
Photography: Adil Hasan and Indu Antony
More on the Toto Funds The Arts 2012 here.
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