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.