This is a bit overdue, but I thought I would do a quick recap of a concert from August 2007 at the Ektaa Center in Irvine, California. Personnel included myself on saxophone, Ajay Narasimha on Violin and Poovalur Srinivasan on Mridungam. It was the first time playing with Ajay, and had been quite a while since I had played with Poovalur Srinivasan.
I had played a concert with Howard Wiley, David Ewell and Sameer Gupta the night before at the Red Poppy in San Francisco. That was a great show, which I will elaborate upon later. So I drove down directly to the concert hall from the bay area.
The hall was very intimate and I was actually able to do the concert without a microphone. There was a good connection between the three of us musically. Ajay did a nice job and of course Poovalur sir provided seamless and beautiful mridungam playing as usual.
I was fortunate to get most of the concert on video. Here are a few clips from the concert. The first is the timeless Swati Tirunal composition “Deva Deva.” The other is the beginning of the ragam in the Ragam Thanam Pallavi (main piece of the concert). Deva Deva Lathangi Ragam I will post more from this concert soon. Some pictures from this concert and the Boston concert here.
Prasant Radhakrishnan 