Anandan "Drums" Sivamani (born 1 December 1959) is an Indian percussionist. He plays many instruments including drums, octoban, darbuka, udukai, ghatam and kanjira. He performed drumming during the Indian Premier Leaguein2008 and 2010. He is affiliated with the Chennai Super Kings team, but gained recognition through his role as A. R. Rahman's lead percussionist. They have been close friends since childhood. In 2019, he was conferred with Padma Shri.[1]
Sivamani's earliest experiments with music were with Carnatic maestros including Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, T. V. Gopalakrishnan, Valliyapatti Subramaniam and Pazhanivel, and L. Shankar. During the early stage of his career, he collaborated with T. Rajendar for many of his music compositions. Sivamani also appeared on screen for the song " Dhinam Dhinam Un Mugam" alongside Actor Anand Babu for the movie "Thangaikkor Geetham" directed by T. Rajendar.[4] The tabla player Zakir Hussain invited him[when?] to share the stage with himself and Trilok Gurtu at a fusion concert in Mumbai. Sivamani has since collaborated with several musicians including Louis Banks.[2] He has done world tours with A. R. Rahman[5] and collaborated with him for Bombay Dreams. He has also been a part of a musical group called Shraddha which comprises Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, U. Srinivas and Loy Mendonsa.[6]
Sivamani has a band called "Asia Electrik" with Niladri Kumar, Louiz Banks and Ravi Chari. He also plays at another world music band named "Silk & Shrada."
sivamani has performed in Dubai, Moscow, New York, Doha and Toronto. During the Mumbai Festival 2005, Coca-Cola India invited him to perform at the Limca Fresh Face 2005 event, where he created melody from Limca bottles.[10] He has also worked on Galli Galli Sim Sim, an educational series on Pogo and Cartoon Network.[8] He also composed music for the ZEE5 original film Atkan Chatkan (2020) where he worked alongside A. R. Rahman.[11]
In 2009, Sivamani was conferred upon with the title of Kalaimamani by the Government of Tamil Nadu, which is the highest State Honour in the field of arts. In 2015, he was honoured with the ‘Best Instrumental Act’ at the prestigious LIVE Quotients Awards (LQA 2015).
Golden Krithis Colours, (1994) a Carnatic Experimental album. BMG Crescendo (collaboration with A. S. Dilip Kumar (A. R. Rahman), Zaakir Husain and Srinivasan and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan)
Pure Silk (2000)
Krishna Krishna, a club track released in UK, with Malayalam composer Rahul Raj.
Drums on Fire (2003). New Earth (collaboration with James Asher)[2]
^"Feast of fusion music". 25 April 2003. Archived from the original on 6 October 2003. Retrieved 31 December 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
