Edward Powell was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1963, into a musical and literary family. His musical training began with the cello at the age of six. Five years later he discovered the guitar which became the passion of his life for the next thirteen years, in which time he studied rock, jazz, folk, and classical music under several renowned Canadian musicians.
After several years as a composer and improviser for his first band, a progressive-rock original music trio, at the age of nineteen he began playing in Canada's nightclubs as an electric lead guitarist.
Two years later Ed teamed up with Gord Martin and 'Dermittlegang', and together moved to London for a musical experiment lasting about 12 months. Thereafter Ed moved back to Canada and to earning his living as a singer/guitarist/entertainer.
In 1988, after a lengthy musical "pilgrimage" to India in which he discovered Indian classical music and the sitar, Edward (encouraged by his father) decided to change the direction of his musical development. He began to study the sitar with Batuk Nath Mishra of Varanasi, and continued this period of intense study under Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee (considered the most brilliant sitarist of India's younger generation) from between 1991 - 1994, in which time he received intimate personal and musical guidance from Budhaditya and his father Bimalendu.
Edward began giving public recitals with the sitar in 1992 and has since performed regularly in North America, Europe, and in India. He has performed with many talented musicians; Celso Machado, Ali Kouskhani, Matteo Scaioli, Fabio Lazzarin, Niel Golden, Adel Awad, Sarabjit Matharu, Neelamjit Dhillon, Andre Thibeau, Scott White, Ivo Sedlacek, Stefan Cihelka, Federico Laterza, Roger Baird, Deepak Prabhu, Stefan Montangero, Tomas Reindl, Patrick Feldner, Friedemann Zintel, Emil Heyrovsky, Vastislav Matousek, Vladimir Merta, Bilal Karaman, Ulf Gjerdingen and many others.
Edward began to study the oud in 1994, and in 1995 journeyed to Morocco in search of instruments and training, where he studied briefly with Nouaman Lahlou. Continuing his in depth study of the oud and the Turkish and Arab makam system Edward traveled, in 2003 and 2005, to Crete to stay and study at Ross Daly's musical Labyrinth. In 2006 Edward was awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to study with the renowned Necati Celik in Istanbul.
In 1997, while in India, he created a fretless guitar by putting a sheetmetal fingerboard (inspired by the Indian instrument, the sarod) onto a steel-string acoustic guitar. Edward continued to experiment and to refine his instrument building skills through the following years, resulting in the creation of eleven unique original instruments which he now uses on CD recordings and in live concerts.
Since 1999 Edward has released five acclaimed CDs and performed an uncountable number of prestigious concerts in many countries. Today he is considered one of the world's foremost fretless guitarists particularly for his unprecedented work stylistically fusing Indian, Turkish, and Western musics. Additionally Edward is known for his dynamic and educational lecture/concerts (workshops), and was the history's first musician to be granted permission to teach Indian music in an Italian conservatory.
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