"An individual who has the ability to connect with the deepest chords of the human experience. Their dedication to music is singularly inspiring"
- Arun Kapur, India Today Group
"A very promising drummer"
- Bill Stewart
"Always so ambitious and creative"
- Ned Rothenberg
"Above and beyond [...]ambition, diligence, creativity, and an insatiable musical hunger"
- Amir Ziv
Vatan Singh Rajan is an Indian drummer and composer. Raised in a country with little support for the arts, the primarily self-taught drummer has worked on the New York Jazz Scene since 2017 with artists such as Grammy Award-winning pianist Rachel Z, NEA Jazz Master Reggie Workman, and renowned pianist Armen Donelian. They have featured at the International Jazzfestival Bern in Switzerland, Lincoln Center, Smalls Jazz Club, New England Conservatory, Yale University, and The Django in the United States, and several more venues worldwide. Seldom acknowledging stylistic constraints, they have been described as 'An individual who has the ability to connect with the deepest chords of the human experience' (Arun Kapur, India Today Group).
Vatan's compositional influences range from their mentor Bill Stewart to composers Olivier Messiaen and Morton Feldman, with music deeply rooted in the New York School, Musique concrète, and constructed soundscapes.
Vatan Singh Rajan (born August 31, 1998) is an Indian drummer, composer, and music educator. Described as "An individual who has the ability to connect with the deepest chords of the human experience." (Arun Kapur, India Today Group), they have worked with Grammy Award-winning pianist Rachel Z, NEA Jazz Master Reggie Workman, renowned Pianist and educator Armen Donelian, and Jazz messengers alumnus Charles Tolliver.
They have performed at Lincoln Center, the International Jazzfestival Bern in Switzerland, Smalls Jazz Club, New England Conservatory, Yale University, The Django, The Roxy, Zinc Bar, and Grace Church Broadway in the United States, The Piano Man Jazz Club and The Air Force Auditorium in India, and the Aitchison Art Festival in Pakistan. Their work as a composer has been described as "Always so ambitious and creative." (Ned Rothenberg, The New School), with a range of experimental percussion works and jazz compositions that have been recorded by celebrated pianist Armen Donelian.
Early Life and Education
Vatan grew up in New Delhi - an environment with little support for the arts. They built their first drum set from their grandmother’s cookware. The largely self-taught drummer garnered significant attention in their early years, featuring in performances at 8 years old, and becoming a bandleader by 13.
Gaining an interest in jazz in their early teens after finding a cassette of Miles Davis’ ‘Kind of Blue’, they joined the Global Music Institute while still in high school, becoming their first ever graduate. In 2017, they received a scholarship to attend The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, where they would study with Reggie Workman, Joan La Barbara, Buster Williams, and Hal Galper, graduating with honours from the institution in 2022, re-enrolling in their Master of Music program in 2023.
Vatan is the student of jazz legend Bill Stewart, studying with him since 2018.
Career
Vatan has a considerable output as a leader, beginning with their rock quintet ‘Roadrunner Crisis’ and their jazz trio ‘School of the Wolf’, started while in their teens in India. They were a featured artist at Lincoln Center, the Bern International Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and have performed all over the United States leading the Vatan Singh Rajan New York Trio, featuring a rotating lineup of eclectic international artists including Indian pianist Utsav Lal, Japanese guitarist Takahiro Nawashiro, and Chinese-Australian guitarist Edwin Corne.
As a collaborator, they have worked with renowned pianist Grammy Award-winning pianist Rachel Z in performances at The New England Conservatory, The Django, Zinc Bar, Roxy Bar, and The Soho Grand, featured as the drummer in Charles Tolliver’s Art Blakey Ensemble and Reggie Workman’s John Coltrane Ensemble, and performed as a frontline percussionist in Scott Kettner’s Maracatu NY, featured in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade from 2017 to 2019.
An avid composer, Vatan has premiered several experimental percussion pieces since 2018, many available to stream for free on their website. They were a featured composer at Lincoln Center in December 2024, and their jazz compositions have been performed and recorded by pianist Armen Donelian in 2022. A trained sound engineer, they have self-produced all of their own recordings, including ‘Musashi’, a picture piece inspired by the life of a Samurai, ‘Hands/I am a Microphone’, a virtual reality concept based on metallurgy, and ‘Ripple’, an experimental work written for 13 wine glasses and 5 syringes.
Through their work as an educator, Vatan has mentored private drum set students across all ages and skill levels since 2013- often other instrumentalists. They have been a composition and production tutor at The New School since 2017, and has taught several workshops as a guest instructor. One of their goals is to make music education accessible, bringing quality mentoring to people from their background who grew up without it.