Raghav Mehrotra, 6, of West Windsor is already performing music on a full-sized, seven-piece professional drum set.
“Raghav has natural musical talent above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen, and he may become a better drummer than me before he’s a teenager,” says Dante Cimino, professional drummer and music director of School of Rock Princeton. “He inspires both our younger and older students as well as our teachers, and he’s an amazing representative of the school’s performance-based music program.”
Mehrotra began drumming at the age of three, when his parents, Pooja and Gaurav, bought him a floor tom-tom. He learned different rhythms by playing along with the radio, CDs, and an iPod. Six months later he graduated to a mini drum set and began taking drum lessons with Daniel Johnson, a percussion teacher from Hopewell. The two jammed together on exotic instruments such as an African djembe hand drum, a Peruvian drum, Latin bongos, and Indian tablas.
“To witness Raghav’s unique talents blossom has been truly inspiring,” says Johnson. “I’ve performed live with him in front of audiences, and it’s apparent that he’s not just my student, he’s also my musical peer.”
Now a second grade student at Maurice Hawk School, Ragnav is as comfortable playing with teenage musicians as he is with his two year-old brother Vir, who bangs along on a djembe. In addition to practicing the exercises, rudiments, and songs that he’s learning in his School of Rock lessons, Mehrotra also enjoys playing along the music of his favorite bands Rush, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, Guns N’ Roses, the Rolling Stones, Jet, and Yes.
“I love playing drums because I love music and it makes me very happy,” he says.
