Inap Raj Shrestha, Nepal Fellow

Music has always fascinated me since my childhood. I loved to hang out with my friends in school who used to jam. Even though I couldn't play any instrument back then, I would just watch them play, guitar in particular. I used to observe their fingers, how they played the chords. One day I went to my cousin's house and just tried out those finger positions on the guitar fret. Suddenly on my first try, I got a pretty decent chord sound (for the first try) and gradually I could at some point change some basic chords and sing songs. 

However, I never thought that I would be doing music in my career. One concert changed my life. I happened to be in the audience at a jazz concert (without knowing that it was jazz) in Hamburg. I was just visiting a friend and I got invited to that concert. I was just so very touched by the performance that I decided to take proper music lessons. That was the first time in my life that I saw someone playing sax live, in front of me. 

Back in Kathmandu, I got to know about this music school called Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory. I went there to take some jazz guitar lessons. Saxophone was not even in my mind till then, even though I loved the instrument. I used to play guitar in beginner's jazz combo. The more I started to learn and listen to jazz the more I got attracted to the sound of saxophone. Suddenly, I decided to buy a cheap Chinese alto sax and try it on my own. Luckily, I got to take some private lessons with my first saxophone teacher Mariano, also one of the founders of Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory. In no time I started to get gigs in KTM, since there was hardly any Nepali musicians playing sax on the live jazz scene. I used to get some private lessons here and there with some visiting artists in KTM. 

My musical journey has all been a coincidence, but what a beautiful coincidence.