Rohini Prasad, Musician

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Sitar player:


Performing at Berhampur, Orissa	Sitar-Veena Jugalbandi

Rohini Prasad has been deeply interested in classical music from his childhood and could notate right from the age of four. He developed a strong liking for Hindustani music as a child. Having been born and brought up in Madras, he was exposed to classical Carnatic as well. In his teen years he was trained in Madras in the art of sitar playing by Pt. L.R.Kelkar of Gwalior gharana (www.musicalnirvana.com/hindustani/gwalior_gharana.html). Even as he continued with his academic pursuits, Prasad went through rigorous training in music.

Later in Bombay he became the disciple of the renowned sitar maestro Ustad Imrat Khan (http://www.imratkhan.com). After his debut solo sitar recital at the age of 16 Prasad has performed on many occasions. Some of his more important recitals include those performed at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (1980), National Centre for Performing Arts (1982), Shanmukhananda Sabha (1985), UNESCO's 40th anniversary celebrations at Delhi (1986) and so forth. Apart from solo recitals, Prasad has performed Hindustani jugalbandi recitals with sarod and flute and also with the Carnatic veena. His familiarity with the Carnatic tradition helps him in performing in duet concerts that provide an interesting comparison and contrast between the two styles of Indian classical music.

Prasad toured the US as a solo sitar artiste in 1989, 93, 94 and 96, giving about 25 recitals in each of these trips at various cities across the length and breadth of the USA. His performances at Houston (1993) with Anuradha Pal (www.anuradhapal.com) on Tabla and the sitar-veena jugalbandi concert with Srikant Chary at Palo Alto, California in 1994 won praise and acclaim. He performed many recitals with David Courtney (www.chandrakantha.com), the talented American Tabla artiste and teacher. Prasad has also played sitar in film and professional recordings and stage shows with well-known playback singers like P.Susheela, Jesudas, Vani Jayaram, Dr. Rajkumar and others.

Composer:

Conducting a Telugu songs orchestra programme at Baroda.

Prasad is also a composer and has conducted many light music and orchestra programmes in India and USA. Apart from numerous stage-shows in and around Mumbai since 1974, he has conducted Telugu light music programmes with orchestra at TANA (http://members.tana.org/) 1989 (Houston) and other venues in the Bay Area. He was entrusted with the task of composing the hour-long inaugural music for the TANA World Telugu Convention at Long Island, New York in 1993 and the welcome songs for the American Telugu Association (www.atasite.com) at California in 1994. While in the US he has interacted with the local music and dance teachers like Chandrakantha and David Courtney and Ratna Kumar (http://www.anjalicenter.org/) in Houston, TX, Rajamani Chary in Detroit, MI, Kamala Vedanthan in Denver, CO, Srilakshmi in the Bay Area and others. Prasad provided the invocation music and inaugural songs to mark the debut of Siliconandhra (http://www.siliconandhra.org/) in the Bay Area in 2001.

Even while a college student in Madras he was invited to compose the background music and play sitar for a Sanskrit drama Anarkali written and directed by the renowned scholar Dr.V.Raghavan. In Bombay he composed the entire background score for a dance-drama entitled Kumara Sambhavam in 1978 which won him praise from eminent personalities like Dr. Vijayaraghava Rao as well as the local newspapers. This ballet was revised with additional acts and was rendered in full Kuchipudi style by the Kuchipudi Kala Kendra, Mumbai on two occasions in 2003. In 2003 Prasad composed music for additional acts depicting the tulabharam scene specially composed for the Kuchipudi ballet Krishna Parijatam and presented by the Kendra in 4 different classical dance forms. The presentation was made at the Shanmukhananda Sabha, Mumbai as part of their Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Some excerpts of Rohini Prasad's music can be downloaded from this page. All files are in Real Audio format. If you don't have Real Audio player then click here to download Real Audio Player.