I mentioned in an earlier post that I would let you know when the new VidyA CD would be available at major retailers online.
Well, its a bit delayed, but here are the links you might have been waiting for.
Some independent music stores like Amoeba, Rasputin, Aquariu etc., will also carry it. If you don’t see it, ask for it! There are also other online services that have it as well.
Well, after over a month’s absence posting here, I finally decided to put together a brief round up of my trip to India. The trip went very well. I had a good mix of personal practice time and concerts among other things. I even got to catch the latest Batman film, “Dark Knight” a couple days before I left. Definitely a dark and chilling film.
I was very happy to spend some quality time with my guru, Dr. Kadri Gopalnath. I was also able to catch up with some friends, mentors and other musicians who I usually spend time with, such as T.R. Subramaniam, A. Kanyakumari, Guruvayur Dorai, V. Suresh, Ganeshprasad among others. This time, it was a treat to perform with B.U. Ganeshprasad (violin), Trichur Narendran (mridangam), Phalgun (mridangam), and V. Suresh during my concerts among others. As I mentioned in my earlier post, my first concert of the trip was at Rameswaram. Rameswaram has an interesting history, mainly because of the religious background. Myself, Ganeshprasad and Phalgun did a morning concert there after a long a night train. It was a part of a three day Gurupurnima event. A video was taken, but as usual, I never find time to upload. I will do it soon enough. Here is a screen grab from the video I have…
After Rameswaram and Thiruvunamalai, I had a concert at a new hall in Chennai called Sri Muthu Venkata Subba Rao Memorial Hall. Quite a long name. I can say that I was extremely impressed with the hall. I think it is the best hall in Chennai. The concert was curated by the hall’s programming director and sponsored by a company there called Gatsby. It was definitely a crowd different from the usual Carnatic listeners, but the response was very good and it was a pleasure to play in a quality environment and ambience focused purely on the music. The whole thing was recorded, both audio and video, so hopefully I will share some of that with you soon. That concert had myself on saxophone, B.U. Ganeshprasad, Trichur Narendran on mridangam and V. Suresh on ghatam.
The concert brought with it a number of press articles of all types. I haven’t received a copy of them all, but here are some links to the ones I heard about so far. If you want to get the latest, probably check back on my press page. If you find anything that is not there yet, let me know.There was also a TV interview, but I lost track of that one. Some of these articles have a slightly odd interpretation of what I had said during interviews, but I have learned that it is unavoidable.
Anyways, that is about all I can cover right now. The other concerts were memorable as well, but I don’t think I will go over everything here. I will try my best to post some videos or other media soon. By the way, I just added a little feed of my latest photos from flickr to the left of the blog. Hope you like it. Between that and my Twitter updates (feel free to “follow” me), you can easily see what I’m up to just by looking at the sidebar, even if I don’t have a chance to update the blog. Just finished listening to the 1967 Lalgudi Jayaraman concert at Krishna Ghana Sabha…again. Never gets old! Take care, and keep listening!
You can get complimentary passes:
The hall is located at:
Shenston Park, 13/1 Harrington RoadPlease note: This post has nothing to do with music. With that out of the way…
I am writing from Changi Airport in Singapore. I am on my way to India for a five week trip for some intensive practice/study and also some concerts around South India. I think I’ve been to this airport countless times now. I am in the unfortunate position of having over an eight hour layover in the middle of the night Singapore time. With the transit hotels overbooked, there really was nothing to do here except wait and endure the 40 minutes bad music that loops over the airport speakers. Anyways, this flight was especially long. Over 11 hours to stop in Seoul, Korea. The usual antics ensued, beginning with some Berkeley students wanting me to switch seats so they could be together. I soon found myself in the middle seat of the middle section, you know, the worst seat on the entire plane, next to some kids gyrating nonstop and calling for their mommy in an extremely high decibel level. Due to lack of sleep I watched more movies than I ever have in a given period…such as Warlords, Juno, Horton Hears A Who and even Japanese film “Smilers,” a heartwarming tale about an over enthusiastic tap dancer with a degree in child psychology who must lead a junior league hockey team in Hokkaido to the championships in order the win his girflfriend’s hand in marriage (with a good dose of McDonald’s product placement). There were other movies too, but I wont get into it. There was a 90 minute layover in Seoul. In the airport I noticed a funny trend. Nearly all of the younger Korean couples had coordinated or sometimes exactly matching outfits. I spotted at least five such couples at the same gate. I am not one to notice clothing, but it was so glaringly obvious, and actually a bit hilarious. I wonder if that trend will ever make it the U.S.? Matching couples clothes! Anyways, I’m probably the last person to notice this… I spent some time in a small Korea Culture Museum they had there. Not bad. I’ll leave you with two thoughts: 1. Why is it that the majority of passengers jump up and stand in a line before boarding even when its not yet time to board and it wont help them get on the plane faster anyway? 2. Singapore “Changi” airport advertises all over that they have FREE wireless surfing. Well, from what I could see its not free — you need to have one of those airport wireless providers to login. I might be wrong, but you will need to use the ethernet stations located around the airport. Have a great holiday weekend!This almost two months overdue, but I thought I would give you a quick post about a concert at Sangati Center on May 3rd, 2008.
The concert featured myself on saxophone, Ajay Narasimha on Violin and Anantha R. Krishnan on Mridungam. It was great to play with both of these artists. I had played with Ajay before and it was the first time playing with Anantha, who in case you did not know, is the grandson of the legendary mridangam vidwan Palghat Raghu. As he jokingly said before the concert, “that doesn’t mean I play well.” But of course, he played wonderfully, and we all had a good time. I am looking forward to performing together again. Here are a couple photos and excerpt videos from the concert, with more to come. Full photoset on flickr here.
Hi!
That is me right this moment…not sure why I decided to include this picture.
Today we will be performing at the Red Poppy Art House to celebrate the release of the new CD! It is extra special, because today is my dad’s birthday (mom, myself, dad below).
I just received the first shipment of the new VidyA CD, which we will be releasing at the Red Poppy this Friday. It was an exciting moment, so I thought I might as well share it with everyone. Here are some pictures of it so you can imagine what it will look like in your own hands…
This is an exciting period as quite a few things are happening. I hope everyone is doing well and is in good health. The weather has been great here in Oakland, California.
Prasant Radhakrishnan 
