Panache Press Meet by Navdeep Ahuja and Sonali Ahuja

Panache School of Sound, the only one of its kind of a School of Sound in both telugu states, completes 8years of successful journey. With two campuses, one each at Abids and Banjara Hills, it comprises of School of Sound, DJ School, RJ School, Event Management and Photography. With DJ Studio, Recording Studio, Mini Lab, 25000sft sound area, Wi-Fi connected lecture rooms it has been running courses in Audio Engineering,Electronic Music Production, DJ, RJ, Event Management and Photography.

Owned by Sonali Ahuja, she is the first in India to own and run a Music Technology School as Chief Operating Officer. She dedicated Panache to the advancement of women in music production and the recording arts.

We completed 8 years and celebrate World Music Day. We have built a great track record over the years. We have achieved a unique distinction of producing 1000 music professionals and also produced 400 DJs informed Navdeep Ahuja, Founder of Panache addressing the media today. It is a real tall order not many can boast of. It is today, a name to reckon in the industry. It is one of the top ten private music schools in the country. Some of the other includes Electonyk Academy a brain child of DJ NYK at Delhi; PartyMap DJ Academy of DJ Akhil at Mumbai and Pune; DJ Chetus,School of Music.

Navdeep Ahuja is among the few well recognised professionals in the field of Music Technology in the city. He is also among the few Visual DJ Artists in the country. He is the first to introduce the biggest snooker parlour in city 15 years back which was inaugurated by internationally renowned Billiards Player Geeth Sethi. He is a Young Entrepreneur 2015 award recipient.

Panache has given Hyderabad city, the first female sound engineer—Ms Indu Ravali. Many women and top corporate executives are pursuing dual careers by joining Sound Engineering and DJ courses at Panache. Some of these include Saila Shree,a successful business woman providing security solutions pursuing DJ career. Sunitha Dhar, an executive with HSBC is Pro DJ now. Simran, 16years old boy is pursuing DJ course. Beena works for Google & now is also a Post Production and Recording Arts.

Panache is the first professional DJ school in India to be certified by the world leader in DJing- Pioneer DJ. Panache's another unique distinction is to contribute to the rise of India's female DJs In the rarefied world of DJing, as with many other areas, men occupy the top positions. In whole of India, there are only 15 female DJs and only 2 or 3 are from Hyderabad and they are produced by Panache. These include: DJ Rink and DJ Ashes,Sunita,Khurshid,Megha (Chennai) & now Simran (16 year old).

DJ Rink is widely popular during the IPS parties with everyone from the emcee to the cricketers grooving their bodies to her mean tracks. Her debut album 'The Way You Like Me' is a smash hit and she's climbing the popularity charts at a rapid pace. Her genres include everything from Bollywood and bhangra to house and hip hop. She is India's No 1 female DJ in Bollywood Genre. We have given breaks to DJ of HIT. Several have left their old their old professions made big career breaks in DJing. Many cities top talent of DJs are graduated from Panache. We are the true professional Music Technology School, informed Navdeep.

Panache School of Sound is awarded as the Best Music Technology School in India during Education Excellence Awards (Brands Academy) in Mumbai recently.

We are changing our DJ equipment. Importing the latest technology, informs Navdeep Ahuja. We are introducing Dual Career program. You may be a software professional by the day and churn out music at friends party in the night as DJ. Which many have opted now. And it has become great hit now, he informed.

Speaking about why aren't there many women into music production, women as professional Sound Engineers Sonali Ahuja says women account for less than 5 percent of producers and engineers. Jaddan Bai is known to be the first ever female music director Bollywood ever had. She is the mother of famous actress Nargis. She has composed the music of Raja Gopichand, Madam Fashion, Talash-e-Haq, Insaan Ya Shaitaan.

The only other name that rings any bells is that of Usha Khanna. She made her debut as a music composer with the 1959 film D/7 Deke Dekho. She became famous by composing songs like Chodo kal ki baatein, Shaayad meri shaadi ka khayal, Zindagi pyaar ka geet hai and Agar turn no hote among others that went on to become chartbusters. Sneha Khanwalkar composed music for well acclaimed film Gangs of Wassepur.

Panache student Chandana is working on being a tollywood music producer. Even the Tollywood doesn't have many female music composers/directors : Take for instance, Hyderabad, the city of 80 lakh population and half of them being women, only recently we gave the city its first female sound engineer—Ms Indu. There is a gender bias definitely for unknown reasons. Women are good in singing. They can be good music directors and composers too. But, what is holding probably for them is women find singing simpler than music composing, which is an extremely time consuming and is also a huge responsibility. It is much more difficult job than singing, Sonali said.

It is not that Bollywood or Tollywood or any other industry in not encouraging, but there arent many composers coming forward. There is no dearth of talent. However, things are changing. A new breed of women music directors are emerging, who might change the equations. Though there is no definite reason for women not coming forward in music composing in the past, now things are changing. Many independent musicians are coming up, informed Sonali.

Another problem is, it male dominated. And nobody attempts to break what has been the norm for years. Many women like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Usha Uthup, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Goshal excelled as singers. However, we don't find many women who play musical instruments too. Though there are, but the number is very small.

The real question now is who will bell the cat. That is why Panache is focusing on graduating more women in music technologies. Soon we will fill this gender gap, informed Sonali.

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