Avataar is a Canadian jazz ensemble from Toronto, Ontario, whose album Worldview won the Juno Award for Jazz Album of the Year – Group at the Juno Awards of 2022.Holly Gordon, "Here are all the 2022 Juno Award winners". CBC Music, May 14, 2022. Worldview was also earmarked by CJRT-FM as one of the 25 best jazz albums of 2021.
Led by saxophonist, flutist, composer and vocalist Sundar Viswanathan, the band performs a blend of jazz with world music and rock/pop styles such as Bossa Nova, Indian classical music, African, art rock, ambient music and gamelan.Mary Katherine Keown, "Q and A with Sudbury's Sundar Viswanathan". Sudbury Star, March 20, 2016. Viswanathan, a native of Sudbury, Ontario, is currently a professor of music at York University in Toronto, and has also played with the world music combo Jaffa Road.Justin Skinner, "Jaffa Road creates music that reflects diversity of Toronto". Toronto.com, May 27, 2012.
The group's debut album Petal was released in 2016.
Other members of the band are vocalist Felicity Williams, tabla player Ravi Naimpally, guitarist Michael Occhipinti, bassist Justin Gray and drummers Giampaolo Scatozza and Max Senitt."The Jazz Club returns for another season". Revelstoke Mountaineer, October 1, 2019.
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