New Grammy Winning Arkai Duo: Inside Their Big Win

Music Matters with Darrell Craig Harris

Darrell Craig Harris

Music Interviews, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 107 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

ARKAI is a GRAMMY® award-winning electroacoustic duo that has captivated audiences around the world with their creative imagination and cutting-edge string music. Graduates of the famed Juilliard School, ARKAl's signature sound has led them to hundreds of shows around the world that include esteemed performances at GRAMMYs On The Hill and Carnegie Hall, opening for GRAMMY and Oscar-winning musician Jon Batiste, and joint recording projects like ICARUS - Orchestral Version with piano sensation Tony Ann and Decca Records. They recently opened and performed with Ann at the legendary Troubadour club in LA for back to back sold out shows. As songwriters & performers, their creative versatility has led to collaborations with GRAMMY-award winning music producers, Hollywood trailer houses, Cirque du Soleil acrobats and olympic gymnasts, contemporary dance companies, chart-topping musicians, and full-scale symphony orchestras. ARKAl's sophomore album, Brightside, was released in 2025, created in collaboration with producers Jonas W. Karlsson, Donny Bravo, and Charlie Heat. ARKAl is a voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs). www.ArkaiMusic.com www.Instagram.com/arkaimusic Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/2uKlHTuXAa9qacjncF1s4L?si=n7zTjY1bTzKwjLfdFaCeGg About Music Matters with Darrell Craig Harris The Music Matters Podcast is hosted by Darrell Craig Harris, a globally published music journalist, professional musician, and Getty Images photographer. Music Matters is now available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, and more. Each week, Darrell interviews renowned artists, musicians, music journalists, and insiders from the music industry. Currently, 870,000 global downloads in over 40 countries. Visit us at: www.MusicMattersPodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/musicmattersdh For inquiries, contact: musicmatterspodcastshow@gmail.com Support our mission via PayPal: www.paypal.me/payDarrell voice over intro by Nigel J. Farmer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Archie duo. How are you guys doing today?
0:03.8	Doing great. So happy to be here.
0:05.7	Awesome. Well, thanks for joining me. So we have Jonathan. Is it Myron?
0:09.7	That's right. And we have Philip Shigog.
0:12.8	Shigong. Yep. First accent on everything for us.
0:15.8	All right. Cool. Good. I'm always, the last name thing is always a bit of a challenge.
0:20.2	So that's good. Easy to pronounce. So you guys, the last name thing is always a bit of a challenge, so that's good, easy to pronounce.
0:22.5	So you guys just won the best contemporary instrumental album Grammy this year, which is amazing and very, very stiff competition in that category, a lot of great musicians.
0:33.1	Let's talk about how you guys first came together and met. I think you went to Juilliard. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. So both Philip and I are classically trained. And we went to the Juilliard School in New York, but we actually didn't meet at school. I'm a little older than Philip. And though we overlaps at Juilliard, we didn't meet in the building, which is kind of crazy, actually, because it's a very,
0:55.7	very small place, about 700 students.
0:58.7	And you're kind of like all just in the same building.
1:01.4	And so you're bound to meet one another.
1:03.1	We didn't meet each other.
1:04.2	So it took a conference that was hosted at Drouilliard, where we were repping the school.
1:12.4	And one day after classes, there was a party.
1:16.1	And we had our instruments with us.
1:18.8	And Philip and I just started to jam.
1:21.7	And there was a whole room of people.
1:23.9	So you can imagine like, well, we were kind of like the DJs that night.
1:26.8	And so we jam for over an hour. The whole room started singing and dancing to our music. And that was the
1:32.7	first time that Philip and I really had a profound conversation, musical conversation.
1:39.7	And it was this magical moment for us when we heard our unique sound.
	...

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