Young engineer-turned-musician from Muvattupuzha strikes gold in European 3D audio production competition

His composition, named Zeolla, bagged the gold beating competing works from Austria and Germany

Rohith Sakthi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

When Rohith Sakthi composed a Hindi song while he was back at his home in Muvattupuzha over a year ago, he hardly had any plan other than to give vent to his creative urge.

Shortly thereafter, the 26-year left to work with Germany-based Fraunhofer, developers of the next-generation audio technology, after taking a break for a year from the University of Huddersfield in the U.K. where was doing his BSc (Hons) in sound engineering and music production.

European competition

It was then he got an opportunity to contest in Europe’s Sixth 3D Audio Production Competition hosted by the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics in Graz, Austria, last year. That was when he dusted off his composition, named Zeolla, again.

“It was a competition for infusing music with immersive audio. I thought I will submit an entry and if it even gets qualified it will be a recognition in itself,” says Mr. Sakthi, a trained singer in Carnatic music.

He chose to contest in the category ‘music recording/studio production’ and set out mixing his track using a next generation immersive audio technology.

The entry was not only accepted, but the track, which he himself sang, bagged the gold beating competing works from Austria and Germany. Huddersfield University published his achievement in its newsletter on Tuesday and since then Mr. Sakthi, who is now back at the university for the final year of the course after his placement year break, has been attracting much attention on his social media handles.

Gaining attention

“For instance, my LinkedIn profile has been receiving quite a lot of interest from recognised names in the field of audio technology. Hyunkook Lee, a pioneering researcher in immersive audio technology, has even shared a post about my achievement, which is such a great recognition,” said Mr. Sakthi.

Parents remain his biggest cheerleaders. After all, not many parents will give in when their son, a BTech graduate in mechanical engineering, prefers to do a second bachelor’s degree and that too in music rather than following on the footsteps of his father who is an engineer.

“I tried a job in engineering for a few months but realised I wasn’t cut out for that. I wanted to pursue music and my parents readily agreed. Now if I don’t compose something for a few months they egg me on,” said Mr. Sakthi. His first composition, a Tamil track, was released on YouTube by music director Bijibal.

He is now looking to pursue music-related profession abroad. But eventually, he wants to return home and set up an immersive studio or a record label and be an entrepreneur in the music industry.