- show.
- Thanks for coming here and seeing us. This is the first time I'm performing here, and it's a great pleasure
- playing here. My name is Prasanna, and that is Srinivas Krishnan on tabla and Satish Pathakotta on kanjira.
- Thank you. The first piece was a composition of Muttaswami Dikshitar called Gajanana Yutam in the raga
- Chakravakam and was set
- to Adi Thala, or the eight-beat cycle. Second piece was one of probably the three most funkiest compositions
- in Indian music. And it's in the raga called Swararanjani, a very rare raga. And it's a composition
- of Ramnathapuram, Srinivasa.
- a sober piece in the raga Jaganmohini. I don't know why it got funked up but that's okay. We all get
- excited. Anyway, the next piece I'm playing is a composition of Saint Thyagaraja in the raga Hindolam
- which is a pentatonic raga which has
- up and coming down and I would play an alapna of the raga a little bit before we play the composition
- and continue the improvisation.
- We will now start the second half of the concert immediately. The first part that you just heard featured music
- from South India, South Indian classical music. What you will be hearing now in the second half of the
- recital would feature a combination of instruments, true global music. We have taken music primarily
- from India, but used a lot of instrumentation from various parts of the world, the Caribbean, European
- tradition, Indian tradition.
- Members of a string quartet, we have a marimba. So we hope you like the second half of this concert.
- As people come in, I will introduce each member of the ensemble. So I'd like to call upon the members
- of the Global Rhythms Ensemble. Carlos Rubio Alberto Davila on the violin. He's a member of Quartet
- of America, a string quartet from Venezuela.
- On the violin also is Marion Peraza from Cuarteto America, Venezuela. Thank you. Both of them are currently
- in residence at Miami University in Ohio and they've been part of Global Rhythms for this entire year.
- On the viola, the viola, sorry of my Indian accent, on the viola we have Julia Hammond
- On the cello, we have Ezra Wimberley. On the marimba, we have Janava Conaway-Benison. On the steel pan,
- we have Pat Hearnley. On the flute, we have Tony Barnes.
- Before I call upon the three other senior artists, I want to mention something about the first artist
- whom I will call upon. You just heard a wonderful Kanjira player over here, Satish Pathakota from Austin,
- and he's absolutely fabulous. He's been one of the key performers for all our shows all over the country.
- I'd like to welcome him and thank him sincerely from the bottom of my heart for all his good work for
- the ensemble. Satish Pathakota on the Kanjira.
- The second guest artist, many of you may have seen him here in the Bloomington area years ago, is a
- superb trombone player from Puerto Rico. And now he's, in fact he did his education even over here and
- he's a faculty at Miami University. Jaime Morales Matos on the trombone.
- Jaime has done all the big gigs. His name is not on the program, but he's performed with the best.
- I mean, Tira Ponte, everybody. He's amazing. And before we call our star tonight, he would be coming
- in the second piece. But we have the first piece, which we would start immediately, which is a composition
- of Tiagaraja. It's a composition called Sadamathim. It's a very popular composition.
- In India, when musicians get together in a gig, imagine this entire room of musicians, and all of us
- are singing, performing, and doing something or the other. There would be pin drop silence when one
- individual enters. That individual, we have been very fortunate to bring him here today to Bloomington.
- He has been gifted with a
- with a very, very unique sense of sound, melody, rhythm. And above all, I think here is a musician whom
- I always felt who played first with his heart, and then with his mind, and then with his fingers. Very
- rarely do you come across musicians like this. I'm honored, very honored that we could celebrate
- the coming of the millennium. I've been performing at Lotus from the year it began. But this year is
- very, very, very special to me. I want to thank Lee for working out my details because I was in India
- all along. He was so nice, he and Luan. And we have made it possible for the entire Lotus committee
- to have India's best percussionist. Let's give a standing ovation to Sri Umayalapuram Shivaraman on
- the Mridangam.