dsinha

Debashis Sinha's creative output spans a broad range of genres and media, from solo audiovisual performance projects on the concert stage to the rich sonic space between your headphones. Driven by a deep commitment to the primacy of sound in his creative practice, Sinha has developed his artistic voice by weaving together his own experience as a 2nd generation south Asian Canadian, his training with master drummers from various world music traditions, a love of electronic and electroacoustic music and technology, and a desire to transcend the traditional expectations of how these streams might intersect and interact.

The source material Sinha uses is put to various tasks, from pieces that explore and abstract his cultural heritage and experience, to works that result from a directed focus on distilling the elements of his sources into their component parts of light and sound. The wide range of audio, video and audiovisual works and performances, while varying in concept and content, are nonetheless a result of an artist with a fierce desire to expand the notions of what it means to express and be influenced by a life in/between cultures. He has appeared on the Gustaff and Establishment record labels, as a solo artist at the Sound Symposium, ORF Kunstradio, Deutschlandradio Kultur, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Festival del Arte Radio, Madrid Abierto, MUTEK, the Guelph Jazz Festival, Radio National España, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art, to name a few, and as a member of various musical ensembles across the country and internationally, including the duo Knuckleduster, with noted Berlin musician Robert Lippok (raster-media, Monika, etc)

Parallel to his solo sound work, Sinha maintains a robust presence in the theatre world, winning Dora awards for Sound Design for his work on Crash (Theatre Passe Muraille) and We are Proud to Present… (The Theatre Centre/Why Not Theatre), a Toronto Theatre Critics Award for design on Eurydice (Soulpepper Theatre) and Dora nominations and awards as company member for other Toronto area theatre works. Companies Sinha has worked with include The Stratford Festival, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Peggy Baker, inDance, Tribal Crackling Wind, Volcano Theatre, and others.

Sinha's continuing musical practice and re-interpretation of himself as an artist comfortable working in various media have allowed him to realize projects and performances around the world. He has been a recipient of grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Chalmers Foundation. Other awards include a Banff New Media Institute/Quebecor fund fellowship at the Banff Centre and the XIV Radio Creation Works contest, awarded by Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporanea, a major international prize to create new radiophonic work.