Entire Jury resigns from the jury panel for IRAA 2022
Pramod Chandorkar and Anil Chopra
Indian Recording Arts Academy Awards
The notable jury of IRAA that resigned en masse from IRAA were in fact jury members from 2017. For
the past five years the IRAA awards committee had the same jury comprising of the most reputed sound
recording engineers and music industry professionals in India. In fact, the 12 jury members namely
Pramod Chandorkar - Founder & Director of Soundideaz Academy and Head Technical Engineer for
Sonu
Nigam Live in concert, Aditya Modi - Director Modi Digital and Chairperson, Audio Engineering
Society India (AES India), Ashish Saksena - owner of Purple Haze Studios and live sound
engineer for
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Bishwadeep Chatterjee - multiple award winning Sound Designer and
Co-founder of
Orbis Studio, Eminent Music Composer/ Arranger/ Producers - Indrajit Sharma (Tubby) and
Jim Satya,
well know sound engineer and Co-founder of OdBle Consultants - Mujeeb Dadarkar, Pro Audio
Application Specialist, AVID and Dolby Atmos Certified Mix Engineer - Sreejesh Nair, Shantanu
Hudlikar - Eminent Recording & Mix Engineer and Formerly Chief Sound Engineer at Yash Raj
Film
Studios, Yogesh Pradhan - well-known Violinist, Bollywood Music Arranger & Music Composer,
Vijay
Benegal - Recording & Mix Engineer and Co-founder, OdBle Consultants and Vijay Dayal
- Chief Sound
Recordist at Yash Raj Studios, were easily the most outstanding music and sound recording
professionals in the country, most of whom were behind the desks in the biggest and best studios in
India.
It was these jury members and the honorary vice-chairman Pramod Chandorkar who from 2017 to 2021,
contributed hundreds of man hours in a pure dedicated fashion to complete the humongous task of
assessment of all the nominations.
Pramod Chandorkar informed Anil Chopra, Founder and Chairman of IRAA on 29th June that the entire
12-member jury will resign and all of them will proceed to form the Audio & Music Professionals
Society, in a serious attempt to achieve exactly what the IRAA had achieved since 2006.
Pramod noted that Anil Chopra had single handedly created the platform of IRAA to publicly
felicitate the technical arts of sound and music production. He said, "Anil Chopra has envisioned
the need of appreciation of the contribution by the community of audio and music producers, who
should be recognized for their contribution to music and film business in India."
The Jury expressed that they have fulfilled their responsibilities with sincerity and integrity
investing considerable time and effort into making the IRAA awards and making it unequivocally fair,
impartial and credible for the entire community.
Pramod Chandorkar announced the intention of the entire jury and himself to create an association of
sound and music production professionals, tentatively named Audio & Music Professionals Society
(AMPS). He said, "This will provide a much-needed structure to a hitherto disorganized
community, a
forum for discussion and debate, a platform for the organization of seminars, conferences and the
dissemination of technical information, and a collective knowledge resource for everyone in our
industry. We look forward to your ongoing support and encouragement in this endeavour."
Anil Chopra responded to the motive and purpose of the Jury resignation eloquently. "There is no
shadow of doubt in my mind that the community of Indian Sound Engineers is the greatest in the
world. Indian Sound Engineers have created a treasure for the world in the most difficult
circumstances, challenged for recording equipment and support. There is no shadow of doubt in my
mind that the IRAA Jury has built IRAA to a level that an Indian Sound Engineer has so much respect
for the award that he rather wins an IRAA than an Oscar. It is your collective contribution that has
created this respect. The IRAA is in debt to the JURY.
That the community of Indian Sound Engineers believe such a platform of recognition must belong to
the community is just and proper. IRAA wishes success to your just endeavours. IRAA indeed will
continue to serve the sound engineering community with the jury blessings and will continue its
campaign for royalty to sound engineers and its motto Recording is an Art."