Prasanna - NewsSmile Pinki , directed by film maker Megan Mylan with music composed by Prasanna, has made to the shortlist of 8 for the 2009 Oscars for 'best documentary short subject'. The film is about a young girl in India who is treated for a cleft lip. Read the press release on Hollywood Reporter. Prasanna is now part of the Vijay Iyer Quintet along with Vijay Iyer on Piano, Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, Stephan Crump on acoustic bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. The band recorded their first CD in November 2008 for release in 2009. Check out these videos of this exciting band at the Chicago Jazz Festival
Video 2 Prasanna and the 'Electric Ganesha Land' ensemble did a successful US tour in Sept 2008 performing 13 concerts all over the US at several major festivals and venues such as Chicago World Music Festival, Madison World Music Festival, Global Union festival in Milwaukee, Symphony Spacein New York, Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia and others. Prasanna was also featured in some of the top national public radio stations such as NPR in New York, Chicago Public Radio, NPR Wisconsin, WKCR, Columbia University, New York etc, both in live performances and interview segments. Here are links to some of these radio shows that you can listen to - Meet the Jimi Hendrix of India on Wisconsin Public Radio, Sept 10, 2008 with Lori Skelton - live performance and interview
Prasanna was guitar faculty at Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Canada for the Summer 2008 Jazz and Creative Music Program directed by Dave Douglas. Other faculty include Dave Douglas, The Bad Plus, Wayne Krantz, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Clarence Penn, Andy Milne, Dan Weiss,Miguel Zenon, Hugh Marsh, Thomas Morgan, Eric Revis, Donny McCaslin, Laurie Fink, Ingrid Jenson, Ambrose Akinmusire, Yosvany Terry and Afro-Cuban Roots. Prasanna teamed up with acclaimed Pianist Vijay Iyer and tabla player Nitin Mitta to form the band 'Tirtha'. The brainchild of Vijay, 'Tirtha' performed in Chicago, Boston and New York in 2007 to some rave reviews. The band has great plans for the future and will be doing some concerts later this year. Check out the My Space page of Tirtha which also features a video clip from the New York concert and audio clips from the Chicago concert. Prasanna scored and recorded the music for the dance theater production A Story and a Songchoreographed by Aparna Sindhoor. The musicians on the production include Prasanna on guitar and bass, David Binney on saxophone, Prapancham Ravindran on mridangam and assorted percussion, S. Karthick on ghatam and morsing, B.s. Purushotham on kanjira, Veda on ghata singari, urumi and other assorted percussion and Raja on dharbuka, talking drum and other assorted percussion. The workd was premiered at Boston University in July 2007 and has since been performed at Lincoln Center in New York, Clarke Theatre in Montreal, The New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Rangayana arts in Myseore etc. Here is a review of the premiere in the Boston Globe Prasanna recorded some guitars for the soundtrack of the French film 'Essaye Moi' (starring Pierre Francois Martin-Laval, Pierre Richard, Julie Depardieu and others) recently in Paris, France. Prasanna's wife Shalini was a featured vocalist in the soundtrack (other featured vocalists included Chantal Willie from Zap Mama, jazz singer Lizz Wright and David Linx). The music for the film is composed by Belgian guitarist Pierre Van Dormael (Aka Moon 'guitars'). Good news for those of you who are digital junkies! You can now LEGALLY download any or all tracks from 'Be the Change' from the following e-music stores Itunes Prasanna's guitar music is featured prominently on the new CD-Rom on the 'Life and Work' of one of the world's great mathematical geniuses - Srinivasa Ramanujan (who is also Prasanna's direct grand-uncle). The CD-ROM was sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and was formally released by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Hon. President of India earlier this year. Prasanna is featured on the May issue of the renowned 'Jazziz' magazine, as one of the innovative 'roots' based guitarists along with Nguyen Le, Fareed Haque and Rez Abbasi. 'Be the Change' continues to get rave reviews from the international press. Here are links to three recent reviews - in Germany, Italy and France Click here for a free translator in English 'Aka Moon 'Guitars' are back in stock in our online store. Prasanna performed two acclaimed solo guitar (unaccompanied) concerts at Alliance Francaise in Chennai and Koshy's in Bangalore. It featured the first ever live performances of Prasanna's 'Nasika Blues', 'Cosmic Potato' among others including 'Gaza', 'Kalyani Connection', Jazz standards like 'Green Dolphin Street', 'Days of Wine and Roses' and even outrageous versions of the Beatles' Norwegian Wood' and 'Across the Universe'. Click here for a great review of the Chennai concert in 'The Hindu' newspaper. Prasanna's 'Be the Change' concert on Jan 26th, 2005 at Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India with the cool line-up featuring Jeff Coffin on saxophones/flutes/clarinets, Kai Eckhardt on bass and Derico Watson on drums. It was great to see several thousands of people at the concert. Thanks to all who not only came from Chennai but from far off places like Bangalore, Mumbai, Coimbatore etc. Yet another review of 'Be the Change' appeared in allaboutjazz.com. This is an extended analysis written by Vallikanth. Click here for review Thanks to everyone who helped out in making the Tsunami relief fund-raiser concert in Washington DC on Jan 7, 2005. We were able to raise around $10,000 through ticket sales for this worthy cause. Prasanna recorded a few tracks last November with composer/pianist Marc Rossi in his upcoming CD. The new CD will contain Marc's tour-de-force contemporary jazz concerto titled 'Jazz impressions of a kriti' composed specially for Prasanna, among other pieces. 'Be the Change' has been getting rave reviews from top Jazz critics from three of the world's most prestigious Jazz publications like Downbeat (Oct 2004) , Jazz Times (Nov 2004) and Bill Milkowski's elaborate feature in Jazziz. Also Check out Chris Jisi's review in the June issue of Bass Playermagazine. Click here to read these reviews 'The Tempest' choreographed by Astad Deboo with music composed by Prasanna premiered in Sydney, Australia to great acclaim. Prasanna also played live on all the four shows along with his own recorded score. The colorful instrumentation of the score includes a Baroque sized string orchestra (3 1st violins, 3 2nd violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos and 1 double bass), a string quartet (2 violins, viola and cello), bamboo flute, male and female vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, thavil, mridangam, ghatam, kanjira, konnakol and morsing. Yet another original score of Prasanna's was premiered at the bharatanatyam presentation of 'the story of DNA' in Tufts University, Boston in September 2004. The dance was choreographed by Kausalya Srinivasan. The instrumentation of the score includes a string quartet (2 violins, viola, cello), electric guitars, synthesizers, FX loops, mridangam, udukkai, kanjira, ghatam, bells, thavil thattu, morsing and konnakol. Prasanna's acoustic and electric guitar work is featured on A.R. Rahman's songs for his two recent Hindi films -Ashutosh Gowarikar's 'Swades' and and Atul Agnihotri's 'Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha' As a result of the overwhelming response to the limited edition copies of Prasanna's DVD 'Ragamorphism', we are glad to inform you that the re-packaged mass-produced version of 'Ragamorphism' is now available in our store. The redesigned package includes the DVD video and supplemental CD-ROM in a double sleeve DVD box. We have also added a detailed glossary section to make the educational experience even more impactful! Stay tuned!
|