Anil (Alexandre Rizzo) used to play kiirtan only for himself. However, the acarya who initiated him, Acarya Dharmadevananda Avadhuta, insisted that he should play in public. Anil accepted the challenge and made his debut during an akandha kiirtan. He kept his eyes closed, immersed in his devotion, and when he opened them he saw in front of him an acarya. “She looked at me with pity, like someone who was asking me for the guitar,” he says.
Understanding that his kiirtan had been not well received, he could have stopped there. But he kept moving ahead and became not only a very appreciated kiirtan player, but also a composer of beautiful and powerful melodies. Some of them are collected together in his first album, “Life is simple”.
“They are simple melodies, from the intuition of the heart,” says Anil, who says he draws inspiration from erudite artists such as Bach, rock bands like The Who, and popular Brazilian music. Among the kiirtan musicians, he mentions Giiridhara (Glauber Pimentel) as a reference, a margii from Araruama, in the interior of Rio de Janeiro.
Anil is Brazilian, from the capital of Rio de Janeiro. He was initiated in Ananda Marga in 1989 and was a brahmacarii from 1993 to 1995. He currently divides his time between Rio de Janeiro and the Ananda Kiirtana master unit in the rural area of Belmiro Braga, Minas Gerais.
“Life is simple” can be purchased directly from Anil via WhatsApp: +55 21 98251-8250. One of the album’s tracks, “Céu Estrelado” (Starry Sky, free translation), is available on Youtube and Sound Cloud:https://soundcloud.com/anil-rizzo.
Editorial Staff
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