Inap Raj Shrestha

At the age of 16, Inap started to learn guitar by himself. Playing guitar among friends used to be his hobby. After two years, he learnt guitar with good rock guitarists in a private music institute. During a short stay in Germany he got an opportunity to learn german language with scholarships where he was highly influenced by the musicians performing in concerts, malls and even streets. He felt the necessity of proper musical knowledge to become a good musician. After his return from Germany, luckily he got to know about KJC, an ideal place to be and to be learning music properly. He joined KJC for jazz guitar courses in 2008 and got scholarships to learn music. As a guitarist, he has performed in gigs including the Miles Music Festival.

Saxophone was always his dream instrument. Feeling the lack of a saxophone player who specialized in jazz in Nepal, since May 2010, he decided to learn Saxophone in KJC and got remarkable support from Mariano Abello, the director of KJC. He has gotten the opportunity to study Saxophone with Mariano Abello from Spain, Rainer Pusch from Germany and Gianni Denito from Italy. Inap was also a part of the KJC big band, the only big band in Nepal, and has performed in gigs in the valley as the 1st alto saxophonist. Since 2013, he has been a member of Cadenza Collective( winner of 2 Hits FM Music Awards in 2014), besides also being involved in one of the famous bands in Nepal, Joint Family Internationale,a reggae band, which won 3 Hits FM music awards in 2013. He has been playing regularly with Cadenza at Jazz Upstairs in Lazimpat, the only jazz bar in the country. He has been playing in different concerts and music festivals too. His major performances include Jazzmandu Festival 2011(with KJC Faculty), 2013 and 2014(with Cadenza Collective and Nepal Army and KJC Big BAnd), Music for Peace Concert in Kolkata 2013(with Joint Family Internationale) and Global Battle of Bands Competition in Thailand 2014 (with JFI) He has also been working as a Music Theory teacher at KJC and has also worked under the NMES teachers training Program, in the “Empowering Music Teachers with Education” where the music teachers from the Kathmandu valley get the training to be a proper well-trained music teachers. He has participated in different music workshops conducted by world renowned Music Educators like Dr. Gene Aitken from the USA, Bob Sands from the USA, Simons Thorsen from Denmark and Rainer Pusch from Germany.