Aaron Ray Hermes

Aaron Ray Hermes is a professional sitarist, audio engineer, and musician from Texas. He is the founder of music collective and record label Audio Telepathy and has been playing the sitar for over 20 years.

Aaron has played countless concerts, weddings, private events, and VIP galas over the years. He specializes in classical Indian music on sitar and santur.

Audio Telepathy is based primarily on North Indian Classical music. It fuses beautiful melody and introspection alongside complex and energetic rhythmic structures. In the tradition of North Indian music, raga renditions are mostly improvisational-based, freeing the musicians to cater to the music uniquely for each performance.

Audio Telepathy Records recently released a world percussion album by the world-renowned artist Abbos Kosimov, featuring Zakir Hussain and many other great musicians.

Aaron has led a musical life since an early age, starting with the drums at age 4 and guitar when he was 15. At around 12 years old, he saw Ravi Shankar playing on TV and immediately fell in love with the instrument and the music, having no idea what or who it was at the time.

Aaron finally began his journey with the sitar in 1997 in Houston, Texas after a chance meeting in a music store. He eventually went to India to study intently with master sitarist Atmaram Sharma from Hyderabad, India, where he studied music alongside meditation and yoga for several months.

In India, he was also initiated on the santur by the great Shivkumar Sharma, the internationally acclaimed leading exponent of santur. The sitar and santur are both instruments used in North Indian (Hindustani) classical music.

In the USA, Aaron has also had the good fortune to study with the maestros Indrajit Banerjee, Zakir Hussain, Abbos Kosimov, Glen Velez, Steve Smith, and others.

Listen to Electronic Santur and Tabla in Rishikesh w Aaron Ray Hermes.

Watch and listen to Aaron’s music performances.

Visit his GigSalad profile and his Homepage. Follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.