Sunday, May 9, 1999, 5:00 pm
Prasanna (Guitar)
with
Poovalur Srinivasan (Mridangam)
Venue:
The Ann Simley Theater,
Hamline University, Saint Paul
About the artists:
Prasanna is presently the sole professionally performing exponent of Carnatic (South Indian) classical music on the guitar. He has trained with the late vocalist Tiruvarur S. Balasubramaniam and with the renowned violinist A. Kanyakumari. Prasanna is probably the only Carnatic musician who is also an accomplished professional performer of serious Jazz, Blues, Rock and Fusion. He has studied jazz guitar with Mick Goodrick, Ritchie Hart and Garrison Fewell and performed with renowned jazz musicians like Jamey Haddad, John Lockwood and Marc Rossi. He has led several bands featuring India’s top performers like Ranjit Barot, Sivamani and Karl Peters and performed with Louis Bank’s "Silk". Prasanna has also done extensive work in films with composers like Illayaraja and A.R.Rahman. He received the "Best Youth Artist" award from the Madras Music Academy in 1992. A versatile composer, he has written in the genres of jazz, fusion, western classical, contemporary dance, theater and feature films. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Prasanna now devotes all his time to music and is on a scholarship at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston studying Jazz.
Poovalur Srinivasan (Srini) learned the Mridangam from his father P.A.Venkataraman, inheriting two different styles of drumming namely, the Tanjore and the Padukoatai. Srini has performed with artists such as Emani Sankara Sastry, Lalgudi Jayaraman, T.N.Krishnan, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Dr. N. Ramani, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, David Hidalgo and Mark O Conners. Tabula Rasa, an album in which Srini performed and composed with Bela Fleck, Vishwa Mohan Bhatta and Jei Ping Chen, was nominated for a Grammy in 1997. Srini is currently a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles and the University of North Texas, Denton. He received the "Best Mridangist Award" from the Madras Music Academy and has been an "A" Grade artist of the All India Radio since 1979.
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