Manish Anand of West Windsor is a frequent performer at open mics in the area. His favorites include Mondays at Court Tavern in New Brunswick, Tuesdays at Grover’s Mill Coffee House in West Windsor; Wednesdays at Alchemist and Barrister in Princeton, and Fridays at Borders Books in Mt. Laurel. He presents original music from his CDs, “Journey to Bhangra,” “DJ Oddme,” “Thank You Man,” “Dance with Me,” and “2050 India.”
Born in India, he was raised in West Windsor and graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Class of 1988; and Mercer Community College in 1992. His parents, Sue and George, are now semi-retired and living in Robbinsville.
Anand worked at NJN Radio in 1991 to 1992 and had his own electronic dance show. Anand, also known as Oddme, was able to cut some demos at Steve O’Neil’s studio and later met Rob Federici, owner of Polygon Recording Studio. Over the years he experimented with club, house, techno, breaks, jungle, ambient, and industrial music.
“I was inspired to get back into music last year and picked up a guitar and did a promo called ‘Dance with Me,’” he says. He worked with Federici, who played lead guitar, engineered, and mastered the CD. This year he started to release older tracks into one album and “2050 India” was born. This is more of a beat record with hard pounding beats — along with a few new tunes written and sung by Anand.
Visit https://soundcloud.com/oddme to hear samples of Anand’s eclectic repertoire. “Music has been medicine to my life,” he says.
Soyeong Park, an eighth grade student at Community Middle School, recently received first prize in the Goldblatt Scholarship competition and played in the Fine Arts Center at Delbarton School in Morris Township.
“Soyeong Park is one of the best violinists I have ever worked with,” says Hanfang Zhang, Community Middle School’s orchestra director. “She has set a good example for the other music students, and inspires them to be better.”
Park, a member of the school orchestra program since elementary school, has been the concert master, first chair, since sixth grade. She also holds the first chair in the Central Jersey Regional Orchestra and New Jersey All-State Orchestra.
“The way Soyeong plays the violin is breathtaking,” says Zhang, the orchestra teacher at Community Middle School. “She has the highest technical ability I have ever seen of any violinist at this age. She plays music with maturity well above her age.”
