Voleti and MSS Renditions of Viriboni. Timeless!
For the Carnatic listeners out there. One of the most commonly sung compositions rendered with rare depth. I am a fan of both of these musical giants. Enjoy!
http://prasantmusic.com (back to homepage)
http://vidyamusic.com
I am a composer/performer specializing in Indian classical music on saxophone, among other creative music.
This was my "random stuff" blog, but now I'm trying to simplify and reduce, so I'm just going to have one blog. Check here for real important news regarding my music as well as some fun stuff. I also brought in all my old posts for a one stop blog...thing.
New releases and occasional free tracks will be posted here!
I live in the Bay Area with my wife and cat.
I also enjoy fiddling with gadgets and other tech in my spare time...or sometimes when I am supposed to be doing something more important...
Playing and listening to music is a gift.
While I'm figuring this whole thing out, you can still find:
My podcast at http://podcast.prasantmusic.com until I figure out how to bring that over too.
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Amateur King of Masks in Oakland comments on gender
Remember the classic Wu Tianming film King of Masks? It featured the old Chinese art of "bian lian" or changing faces. I hadnt had the chance to see it live, but someone was performing it in Oakland Chinatown. This person kind of stumbled in the middle and got the masks stuck, but it was a good effort. It was a little dissapointing to hear him talk afterwards about how bian lian is supposed to be only taught to men and never to women to protect the secret. Judging from the various performance arts around the world, including Carnatic music, I think gender equality in art is somewhat a given now. Not that one should necessarily infer much culture from an internationally popular movie...but King of Masks (bian lian wang) showed in a nuanced way that ultimately, the gender issue has became irrelevant. I would like to see more bian lian performances in the future, regardless of who is doing it.Do some youtube searches to check out this unique art for yourself.
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Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer at Music Academy 1988
via youtube.com
I've been listening to this recording for years, but had never seen a video. I just came across this on youtube. T.N. Krishnan, Trichy Sankaran and G. Harishankar. Hope someone will post the RTP in Bhairavi from this concert on youtube too.
Sankaran and Harishankar are amazing in this clip and even more enjoyable during the rest of the concert.
It would be great to see some video of the masters like Semmangudi when they are in their prime.
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Some live VidyA videos
Footprints (Wayne Shorter composition)
You can subscribe to videos on youtube, both Carnatic classical and VidyA videos at the official youtube channel.
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Recap of concert at Ektaa Center, Irvine, CA
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 RagamI will post more from this concert soon.Some pictures from this concert and the Boston concert here.
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