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.
Back in my comfortable chair at home, I thought it would be a good to time to catch up with you on my recent trip to Boston. It was definitely cold, but not snowy at least.
The events on the trip were:First, the Brandeis concert. It was a first for me, as I was performing as a guest with Phil Scarff’s group Natraj. The group consisted of Phil Scarff on soprano saxophone, Michael Rivard on Bass, Bertram Lehmann on Drums and Jerry Leake on Tabla. The group combines Indian Classical and other influences with jazz. The approach is very different from what I do with VidyA, but it was fun to play with them and I think the show went pretty well. We did mostly songs from their repertoire , which included a small pallavi in Mohana raga by my guru Kadri Gopalnath, and a song in Saraswathi raga called “River” by Chitravina N. Ravikiran. We also did “Lost Tales” from the VidyA song list, the song will be on the new VidyA CD coming out soon. Here is a picture from the event courtesy of Brandeis.
My time at Wellesley was fun. The lecture on Friday, though short, seemed to go well. It was mostly interactive with a little history thrown in. I also demonstrated various ragas and the students became familiar with the basics of keeping talam (the time meter) to the music. Thanks to Professor Gurminder Bhogal for having me in the class.
The actual concert was on Saturday. The morning had an interesting discussion panel where we talked about the topic of preservation vs change…the ongoing discussion in any art. The discussion was lively and everyone brought up interesting points, which I wont discuss here in detail. Malini Srinivasan and the Jayamangala troup performed a wonderful bharatanatyam program. The varnam in Kambodhi was fanatastic.
After that, myself, B.U. Ganeshprasad on Violin and Rohan Krishnamurthy on Mridangam took the stage. I debuted a masterpiece composition by Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Sri Dakshinamurthe in raga Shankarabaranam raga, Misra Jhampe (10 beats) talam. It is the first time it has been performed on saxophone. It was definitely enjoyable to finally play such a wonderful composition and favorite of mine, on this instrument. I just hope I did it justice!
Of course, it was great to play with Ganeshprasad and Rohan again. Hopefully, we can do it again soon. We also got to spend some time together after the concert. Check out the full flickr set for more pics. View the full photoset on Flickr.
Photos by Ganesh Ramachandran.
So I got back from Barbados a few days ago. Unfortunately, I caught a terrible sore throat and I am still recovering. Anyways, the trip went well. We performed a couple times and it was a privilege to meet so many interesting people.
Even though I was only there for a week, I think I got a sense of the lifestyle in Barbados, not to mention enjoy the beaches. I attended the Barbados Jazz Festival twice while I was there. Unfortunately, I felt the people that played the festival when I went were not jazz at all. I did get to see the Afro Cuban Jazz All Stars, which had Yosvany Terry — a great alto player. Granted Kenny Garrett played, but I didn’t get a chance to catch him.
Check out my flickr set from the trip here. There pictures of Barbados in general and of the concert I did with Meklit Hadero and Todd Brown as part of the Nefasha Ayer project. Here is a slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?group_id=&user_id=18574601@N00&set_id=72157603774130791&text= Next week, I will be in Michigan and Chicago for concerts…hopefully my coughing will subside by then.
Accra Beach
Originally uploaded by prasantmusic
Here is a relaxing scene I experienced the other day at Accra Beach, here in Barbados. I have been enjoying my stay so far here. The weather is great and the surroundings relaxing. We got to meet quite a few interesting people as well as perform and take in the Barbados Jazz Festival.
I will post more on my time here soon. Tomorrow evening we will be performing here before we leave on Thursday.Well, yet again it has been a while since my last post. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Mine was spent in Florida with family — a definite change from my usual trip to India for the music season. It was nice though, I got to see some dolphins and even alligators in the Everglades…(a blurry shot from my cell phone below…)br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp1.blogger.com/_Y1RIPwWnMoM/R4264D1inDI/AAAAAAAAAAM/ksGtgOavmzI/s1600-h/4278190091_journal.jpeg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src=”http://bp1.blogger.com/_Y1RIPwWnMoM/R4264D1inDI/AAAAAAAAAAM/ksGtgOavmzI/s400/4278190091_journal.jpeg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155982620674399282″ //abr /br /Anyways…some updates on the latest news. I am glad to report that the new VidyA cd has finally been recorded! We are still in the rough mix stage, which means it wont be out for a few more months, but we are all very excited about it and even more excited to share it with everyone when it is finally ready. Check out my site and also http://www.vidyamusic.com for updates as usual. You can expect some special concerts to accompany the cd release in March/April, so be on the lookout! br /br /Our next concert is on Tuesday, February 26th at the a href=”http://climatetheater.com/index.php”Climate Theater/a in San Francisco. Click this to add this to your calendar: a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATEamp;tmeid=Xzg5MmsyZGhuODhwM2liOWw2MHBqaWI5azhsMTQyYmEyODRvazRiOWs4NTM0MmRhMTZjcWo2Y3EzNm8gbGRjcDE0MXBvNmhzNDk3dmcxZTEwbjlqazBAZwamp;tmsrc=bGRjcDE0MXBvNmhzNDk3dmcxZTEwbjlqazBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ”img border=0 src=”http://www.google.com/calendar/images/ext/gc_button1_en.gif”/a br /br /Eventually, I will have a little button so you can get all of the concerts like this and it will be even easier to remember all those concert dates!br /br /In other news, I am off to Barbados in a couple days to do some performing there as part of the Nefasha Ayer project (which I had described in an earlier post). I have never been there before, so it should be fun.br /br /Early February brings me back to some Carnatic performances/lecturing in Michigan and U Chicago in the first week. I will be doing those performances with a talented mridungam player named Rohan Krishnamurthy, who you may have heard of, or seen me play with many years ago. If you have any friends out in Michigan or Chicago, tell them to come and listen. br /br /Also come check out a a href=”http://www.sangaticenter.org/events/radhakrishnan21708.html”Carnatic saxophone performance at the Sangati Center/a in San Francisco on February 17th. I would like to mention that this great space that is providing a necessary service to the area needs your support. br /br /So, there you have it: br /br /End of January: Barbadosbr /Feb 4-10: Concerts/lectures at WMU, Kalamazoo College and U Chicagobr /Feb 17: Sangati Centerbr /Feb 26: VidyA at Climate Theater!br /br /I promise, I will try to post more in the future.div 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
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.I have recently become involved in a project here in the Bay Area called “Nefasha Ayer.”
A bit about the project according the Nefasha Ayer myspace page:Nefasha Ayer, loosely translated from Amharic as “the wind that travels”, explores a transcontinental odyssey of multiple characters who find themselves caught between national identities, cultures, and politics. The project joins together the talented song-writing capacity of Meklit Hadero with guitarist/composer-arranger, Todd Brown, South-Indian Carnatic Jazz composer/saxophonist, Prasant Radhakrishnan, drummer/tablaist, Sameer Gupta, composer/bassist/flautist, Eliyahu Sills, and Ethiopian born hip-hop artist, Gabriel Teodros. Nefasha Ayer weaves together Ethiopian and South Indian melodies/rhythms against a varying backdrop of North American jazz, while Hadero’s voice and song, as the wind that travels, serve as the narrator. Nefasha Ayer weaves together Ethiopian and South Indian melodies/rhythms against a varying backdrop of North American jazz, while Hadero’s voice and song, as the wind that travels, serve as the narrator.
Through its tones and colors, poetic texts and trans-cultural melodic scores, Nefasha Ayer joins the continents of Africa, South Asia, and America to explore the most essential and universal qualities shared among individuals worldwide whose identity no longer fits within the boundaries of one country, culture, or tradition. Whereas one would expect the content of such a project to focus on the social/cultural context of its characters, Nefasha Ayer builds on the internal: the subjective yet universal human desire for home. For these characters, “home” is no longer an external place – for some it never was. Home has taken shape instead as a longing within. This is “the space of in-between.”
The space of in-between indeed. It is a space I have long identified with as have many in my position — being of another ethnicity/culture but brought up here in the U.S. I wont go into that right now…
The project is really the brainchild of Todd and Meklit, the heads of the Red Poppy Art House, where VidyA had its first concert. The Nefasha project recently was recognized with a grant from the San Francisco Foundation. As part of this endeavor, I will be helping a bit with composing and of course playing. Todd, Meklit and I meet somewhat regularly to hang out at the Red Poppy and work on this music. One of the things that struck me about the inflections in Ethiopian vocal music is that they are vaguely similar to those used in Carnatic or Hindustani music. Of course this is from a very general level of analysis. The interesting thing is that I can bring in appropriate ragas and Carnatic phrases into my improvisations and/or the compositions without it sounding out of place. The music has a very laid-back feel to it but with a constant sense of forward motion. This is due to the rhythms inherent in Ethiopian and even some African music. Also, keep an eye out for Meklit. Her music and voice is really unique. We recently performed a short set at the MAPP at the Red Poppy of course. The MAPP is always fun, since it is about the community and such. Of course, the compositions have ways to go before they are ready.
Prasant Radhakrishnan 
