Con-Fusion, of music

A group of five different personalities with their own unique talents and taste on music, Con-Fusion is keyboardist Yuvash Vaidya, tabla player Ashesh Kulung Gurung, drummer Rishav Rai, guitarist Ankit Raj Suwal and bassist Pratik Baniya playing together. They not only play different instruments but also have different interests.



Vaidya and Gurung are wild haired playful bunch who loves to crack jokes, Rai starts tapping which ever furniture he finds, Suwal is reserved personality and Baniya whom everyone calls their ‘professor of music theory’, write the lines that ties the group’s rhythmic and melodic ideas together.

The band name Con-fusion comes from the place and type of music they practice as ‘Con’ stands for ‘Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory (KJC)’ where they study, teach and practice, and ‘Fusion’ is for the type of music they play- ‘both jazz – rock fusion’ standards of the 1970s and 80s and Eastern classical influences they are increasingly incorporating.

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More than their personalities or anything else, the band is focused on their music. Pratik, Yuvash, Ankit, and Rishav had been playing together for 14 months and Ashesh had joined them only two months prior to their participation in Jazz for the Next Generation Band Contest where they got selected as an outstanding band. They had put together their 3 songs set for the contest in only four intense rehearsals.

Although their journey may sound effortless, it’s a result of a year of collaboration and effort. The band had started out with four musicians eager to explore although they were new to jazz. They started playing from prepared charts before they learned to write. They started off playing TeenTown by Jaco Pastorius which is considered as the simplest of jazz standards. However, by the time they played it on Jazzmandu stage, the tune went on to be more original letting their individual talents show which impressed the judges, all professional international musicians playing at Jazzmandu.

Pratik, Yuvash and Ashesh are scholarships students at the conservatory while Rishav, Ankit, along with Ashesh teach there. They want to learn to take more responsibility and grow as artists and realizing the limitation of music education in Nepal, they plan to go abroad for higher education in music. However, they want to come back to Nepal and play again to hopefully inspire another young generation of Jazz musicians.