First Nepali to be nominated for a Grammy Award

Photo: MANOSE NEWA/FACEBOOK

Flautist Manose Newa, known mononymously as Manose, is the first Nepali to be nominated for a Grammy Award. 

He was nominated for his contributions to musician Deva Premal’s album, Deva, for the Best New Age Album category. 

In a Facebook post published on 21 November Manose wrote: ‘And the Grammy goes too… This morning beloved Deva and Miten called me and gave me some surpris news… We have been nominated for a Grammy!” 

The winners will be announced at the 62nd Grammy Awards on 27 January 2020. 

Manose fell in love with the bansuri when he first heard its haunting sound one night at the age of eight. Although he didn’t know what that sound was then, he later discovered that it was that of a bansuri, he said in an interview with Nepali Times in 2015. 

Since hearing the soul-touching sound as a young boy, he has established himself as a flute virtuoso.

Manose left Nepal in 1998 at the age of 20 to tour the west with Nepali tabla player, Homnath Upadhyaya. Since then, he has travelled to more than 25 countries, searching for inspiring musicians to collaborate with. 

He has played with musicians from a wide range of genres like Cadenza Collective, 1974 AD, Ani Choying and his own band, Sukarma. 

During his many travels, Manose met Premal, a female musician who is known for her devotional songs, mantras and spiritual elements in her music, and her life and duet partner, Miten.

The album Deva, which consists of 7 tracks that incorporate the enchanting Gayatri Mantra, is described to be “a deeply relaxing mantra sound-bath for body, mind & spirit, ideal for meditation and slow yoga flows.” 

Manose’s soaring flights of the bansuri in the album is hauntingly beautiful and woven melodiously in the mantras of each track.