Ninichi and Xelafish is a brand new sheet music publishing house created by composer, Ninichi, and talented writer and multimedia creative, Xelafish. They came together to create this special sheet music store, which will be launching its first sheet music collection for piano, violin and violin duet on the 7thOctober 2019 via an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

To help us understand more about where the Ninichi and Xelafish printing house has come from and to understand the vision for it, let’s get to know Xelafish a bit better…

Welcome Xelafish! Tell us how you got into the world of music?

‘One of the coolest things I ever got into was piano and violin lessons from primary school. I was never the most talented at them with the best ear or technique, nor did I practice the most amongst too many other distractions except in sporadic flurries around the odd concert and exams. But I loved playing for the fun of it all the time and going on a journey through music. If anything, the thing I enjoyed collecting the most as a kid was not the DVD or the album / soundtrack / cast recording of anything - it was getting the sheet music and getting to play something for the first time and get lost in exploring it.

I still enjoy playing when time allows and it’s still as much fun to mess around solo or play socially with friends as it always has been. I’d been playing piano and violin pieces with friend and composer Ninichi for a couple of years when we ran out of music. It’s impossible to run out of music and although I sometimes get nightmares sheet music “runs out” (the reason is always different, the most recent, yesterday, was Boris Johnson) but we wanted to play something that wasn’t there.

Something that fell more in-between genres of classical, folk, soundtrack music and also more Lindsey Stirling’s fantasy style, but more conventionally melody led than dance music led. We also wanted it at the right level - easy enough to play for fun and enjoy it after a bit of work, difficult enough so it’s harder than some of the easy-play soundtracks out there and has a sense of thrill and excitement to conquer. And we also wanted context and purpose to the music - to engage with it as if there was a reason or scenario for playing it.’

I see, so is this where the Ninichi and Xelafish partnership began?