span style=”font-family:georgia;”Yes, it has been a long time again since my last post. This post is about vidyA. vidyA is the group I started in late 2005 that I mentioned in my last post all the way back in January. It has been a great year for us, and I am extremely excited about the coming year. As you know, vidyA has been attracting more and more listeners in the bay area and beyond through its energetic performances that combine South Indian classical music with Jazz. I just got back from a Carnatic saxophone tour of various cities in North America., while /spana style=”font-family: georgia;” href=”http://www.sameergupta.com/” target=”_blank” onclick=”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”Sameer/aspan style=”font-family:georgia;” (drums) and David (bass) have been busy touring with several jazz greats. Gautam continues to inspire the bay area music scene through the /spana style=”font-family: georgia;” href=”http://www.sangaticenter.org/” target=”_blank” onclick=”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”Sangati Center/aspan style=”font-family:georgia;”, and of course, his violin./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:georgia;”Most importantly, vidyA has been busy performing as a group!/spanbr /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://blog.prasantmusic.com/uploaded_images/dsc_0095-727614.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://blog.prasantmusic.com/uploaded_images/dsc_0095-726125.jpg” alt=”” border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-family:georgia;”Since our first performance in January at the Red Poppy Art House, vidyA has performed to packed audiences in several bay area venues; festivals such as SFJAZZ, Artwallah (in Los Angeles) and Himalayan Fair; has forged relationships with organizations such as TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), 3rd Eye Film Festival, ASHA and companies such as Innominds Software; and provided an original soundtrack to the dance production “Lost Tales: Glimpses From 1000 Ramayanas” by NATyA./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:georgia;”This is all, in part, thanks to you, our enthusiastic listeners and friends, who by enjoying our music have inspired us to attempt to expand and merge traditional boundaries and more importantly, continue to create./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:georgia;”2007 will be a huge year for both vidyA and — most importantly, our listeners. Many of you own our limited release live CD, and have asked when we will have a full CD. The answer is, at this point, mid 2007. We are constantly working on new material and honing the old to bring these genres together, so rest assured, it will be worth the wait. Keep checking our website for more updates. This is a great time to get involved with vidyA as well! Send us an /spana style=”font-family: georgia;” href=”mailto:%20concerts@prasantmusic.com”email/aspan style=”font-family:georgia;” (we always reply), tell your friends and family, blog about it, make a podcast, have a party, make fliers — unleash your creative self, I suppose./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:georgia;”Now that everything is up and running, watch this site for more posts! Here is a youtube video for fun of vidyA at Artwallah festival.br //spanbr /object width=”425″ height=”350″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/SuAxk660oZE”/paramparam name=”wmode” value=”transparent”/paramembed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/SuAxk660oZE” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”350″/embed/objectdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”a href=”http://prasantmusic.com”Visit Prasant’s website/a | a href=”http://cdbaby.com/all/prasant”Buy CD’s/a/div