Phoenix Anthology

Phoenix Anthology came to be with the simple purpose of bringing forth and introducing new styles and genres of music to the music lovers of Nagaland.

Lucia had been performing at a few events in Dimapur and also watched a few shows and she noticed that bands were still concentrating their talents mostly on Rock music. She heard a lot of people mention that they enjoyed Jazz, Rhythm and Blues but complained that they never got to watch such shows.

That’s when she decided to put together a group of people from different bands that were talented and willing to step out of their comfort zones and give a shot to what was completely new to them.

She already knew the members of “Blend”, through Laimen (her cousin), who had introduced Jazz Funk to rock music here in Nagaland. So when she reached out to them they contacted their friends who were also keen on experimenting with new styles of music.

Now, the goal is to encourage all the musicians in Nagaland, so that eventually they will be inspired to incorporate the Naga culture and style into different genres of music.

There may be people out there that have been waiting to do this for a while and we call out to them to get in touch with us so that we can get together and change the music environment not just in Nagaland but also all over the world. Who says we should stick with one genre of music? Why can’t we do it all?

BAND BIO
Sentirenla Lucia Panicker
Lucia is an R&B/Neo-soul/Jazz-Fusion vocalist. She was born during Moatsü, a festival of music and dance celebrating the harvest season. With parents of mixed cultural heritage, Lucia is highly influenced by her maternal tribal ancestry as well as the music of her paternal South Indian roots.

Moving to the city of New Delhi at the age of eight, Lucia started listening to singers like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill and Aretha Franklin, and was enthralled by R&B and Soul music.

In a few years, influenced by groups like The Manhattan Transfer, Lucia had started to started to perform in a’capella groups, and went on to organize and lead her school and college choirs. During her college years, Lucia also started to work professionally as a studio musician; recording jingles for radio and television nationally.

In 2002, Lucia was one of the founding members of Artistes Unlimited, a 60-member choir and charitable trust for the promotion of the performing Arts in New Delhi, India.

Lucia traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2005, to attend the International College of Music, where she received her Pre-Foundation Certificate in Music.

During this time, she auditioned for Berklee’s World Scholarship Tour, and was awarded a student scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

In Spring 2007, Lucia enrolled at Berklee, where she has been actively performing at a number of student recitals and shows, where she got to meet artists like Amel Larrieux, Lalah Hathaway, Oleta Adams and Ledisi.

She has sung backgrounds for renowned artists like Tata Vega, Joey Blake, Rhiannon, Larry Watson. She has had the privilege of recording with John Blackwell, as part of the Prince Ensemble.

She graduated in May 2010 with a degree in Vocal Performance and is currently teaching private voice lessons at Zumix (Boston) while actively performing as one of the lead singers of the R&B and Jazz group founded by Bill Banfield called ‘Jazz Urbane’, the lead singer of the band ‘Project 51’, and a member of the a’capella group ‘Sung Deep’.

Laimen Ozükum
Lai started playing music at the age of 14. He was a big fan of rock and progressive music and eventually found his love for Funk and Jazz and his guitar inspirations are Greg Howe, Richie Kotzen, John Petrucci and the late Shawn Lane.      
        
His music carrier started during the early 90’s with a band called Wild Fire (Mokokchung) in the year 2000. He played with highland bands like Truth Inc., Awake, Ember, Jade, Mirage and he is currently the guitarist of “Blend” and teamed up with Phoenix Anthology as his side project band with the view of introducing new vibes of music to the upcoming generation.  
               
Apart from music, he also did his multimedia degree from Arena Multimedia covering graphic designing, webpage designing, video editing, sound recording and mixing and runs his own multimedia studio in Dimapur called AlienWorks.

Akok Imsong
Akok always had a close relationship with music and started playing from a very young age. He says that it was a slow, dynamic process with hardship and struggle, but his family encouraged him the most.

From the age of 14 he took music seriously and started experimenting different music, even different instruments, but the keyboard amazed him the most.

In Akok’s words “It makes us speak out silently, which concluded choosing music as my profession. What I achieve now is mostly self-taught determination, and help from elder brother”.

He currently works as a music instructor at “Hills Praise Music Academy” and High Praise Music School (KWC). He is also the keyboardist of a contemporary rock band “INCIPIT”(runners up of hornbill national rock contest 2010, winner “rock rules” Guwahati). Famous musicians like Yanni, Jordan Rudess and Joe Satriani influenced him.

He mentions that his best experience was during the ICMF (International Culture Mix Festival) held in the month of Oct. 2011 when a got a chance to work and get acquainted with T.C. Hawkins, an international jazz singer.

Merang Imsong
Merang is an upcoming talented musician from Dimapur. He is the youngest between 2 siblings. He has been in the music scene for 6 years and has passion for funk, fusion and folk music.

His favorite musicians are Paul Gilbert (Mr.Big), Nuno Bettencourt and John Petrucci (Dream theater). He has his own band called “Blind” that was formed 2 years ago. His thirst for learning and performing new music lead to “Phoenix Anthology”, as his side project band. Merang is looking forward to go for music studies after his graduation.

Moakum Imsong
Moa, youngest among 5 siblings shares proudly that he grew up listening to Beatles and Deep Purple. He started playing music since high school and his interests lie mostly on progressive and melodic rock music, but is open to experiment with different genres because he believes every genre has its own message and specialty.

He worked in bands like Regeneration Brothers, Native Colours, Fist, Footprints, X’s High, Suffering Soul, Forsaken and at present he sings for the band ‘Blend’. He is currently working on a solo album at Crystal Sound Studio.

Meyasunep Imchen
Sunep started playing at the age of 16 years at church. His inspiration growing up was Flea (red hot chili peppers), Victor Wooten, Dave Larue and other band like U2, Coldplay and Kings of Leon.

He joined the band “Sunep Assemble Band” in 2010 and performed at the Hornbill festival. He then joined the band “Incipit” in 2011; their first gig was in Shillong for Bob Dylan’s 70th Anniversary. He works as a session player in studios.

Lanu Temsu
Lanu is a talented drummer and percussionist who started playing at a very young age but pursued it officially at the age of 20. He loves all genres of music but especially bands like Rush and Dream Theatre.

He attended Golden Crown College (Dimapur) and pursued higher music education from New Delhi. He has been working at ‘Hope Center For Excellence’ since 2011 teaching drums to all age groups.

Bendangtoshi Longkumer
Bendang is the eldest of two siblings and grew up listening to CCR, Dire Straits. He was greatly influenced by Funk and Rock n Roll. He started playing drums since his college days.

He performed with bands like Hyrax, Hailstorm, Unhindered, Sunep Ensemble Band and currently is the drummer for the band “Blend”. At present he is going to for formal training in Drums.

Aien T. Jamir
Aien started singing at churches at a very young age. She is an active member at Dimapur Ao Baptist Church, helping out with the Praise and Worship team and the Youth Choir.

She also works with quite a number of youth ministries for almost 8 years. She teaches at the Kids Worship Centre. She is studying Classical piano at High Praise School of Music, Dimapur. She plans to release her own album in the near future.

Syntyche Mongro
Syntyche is the youngest member in the band remembers at Phoenix Anthology. She remembers singing since her 6th grade for a school competition and by class 8 she started competing at inter school competitions winning first prize. She said her mom influenced her the most to pursue her love for music and helped be who she is.

She entered as a contestant at Naga Idol in 2010 and became one of the finalists. She is a solo artist who performs at events and occasions. She released a Christmas album in 2010. She just graduated from school and plans to pursue her further studies in New Delhi.

Among Ngullie
Among started singing when she was 12 years old. She had been very active in school competitions and won a lot of them. Singers like Adele, Duffy, Sheryl Crow and Pink inspire her. She sang for the Album “Crossover”  for Alem Alia Jamir.

Among got to perform with T.C Hawkins. She was the vocalist for the band “Believe”. She is self-employed and owns “Jeans Freak”. She plans to release her own album soon.