A unique evening at EASTMAN SCHOOL

sundersam · Post by **sundersam** » 22 Jul 2009, 21:23

Last Friday I attended a South Indian Percussion concert at the famous Eastman School of Music in Rochester. The series was spearheaded by US based Rohan Krishnamurthy and involved about ten American students (ranging from students to professors) drawn from across the US. The announcement was a bit misleading since it was essentially a demonstration of what the students had learned over the one week summer institute directed by Krishnamurthy. On stage it was also announced that this was the first of its kind for Eastman School of Music. The demonstration was quite impressive and I thought the mridangist had done an excellent job of familiarizing the Americans with the instrument including the vocal recitation part. They performed confidently and in complete unison. Theirs was followed by the rendering of two krithis by a local artist, Veena (forgot her full name) and a well structured solo by Krishnamurthy. Veen did a splendid job in exposing the audience to vocal CM. The auditorium was nearly packed, in contrast to the turn out we get for CM in Rochester/Buffalo! I remember few years ago watching Krishnamurthy play for violinist T.N. Krishnan in Rochester.
I was curious to talk to some of the participants of KrishnamurthyÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s institute and they spoke very highly of the extremely "organized, focused and well communicated"

mri_fan · Post by **mri_fan** » 23 Jul 2009, 06:04

am i just too cynical?...another 1 post user in praise of rohan...

sundersam · Post by **sundersam** » 23 Jul 2009, 07:24

Yes and have the courage to give credit where it is due, either in music or medicine or engineering, when Indian kids dtsnd out, it is a nice feeling.

sundersam · Post by **sundersam** » 23 Jul 2009, 17:53

Here is something I found. More "cynical" food for some.

http://esm.rochester.edu/iml/spotlight/ ... _index.php
Sam

appu · Post by **appu** » 23 Jul 2009, 18:59

Hello Sundersam, When you click on the link it comes up with "File not found"

Now here is a healthy piece of advise. Try not to turn this into a "slingfest" by hurling words at each other. The more tolerable rasikas in this forum have learned to ignore people like mri_fan who wake up almost everyday on the wrong side of the bed. Being cynical are who they are.

On the flip side, look at it from the stand point of view of the reader. You are a new registrant. Joined yesterday. You come out writing gloriously on Rohan Krishnamurthy with a lot of adjectives. I have heard him. He is okay with a lot of growth potential. You in no way may be related to Rohan, but the post does come out as being a serious well wisher and very close to the family poster.

Hope you understand and try not to make this a controversy

sundersam · Post by **sundersam** » 23 Jul 2009, 19:12

I have no idea where Krishnamurthy comes from or his back ground. In fact I was forced to attend the said programme by a family member who lives in Rochester county. I am no music expert either to judge the artists potential. I posted the matter only because this kid seemed to be doing something out of the ordinary for the ABCDs (may be his parents are whining at this and wanted him to be a doctor a la all Indian parents including me!)
If you couldn't open the link don't bother

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 23 Jul 2009, 19:40

The link had a trailing ']', which I fixed.

There is no need to get heated up. Rohan is a very talented youngster, and is widely known to most of us. If he did a commendable thing in the eyes of someone (whether known to him or not), so be it!

If the cynical among us want to attribute motives, thats fine too as long as it does not descend to slander.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 23 Jul 2009, 19:44

Rohan (Sri Krishnamurthy is his dad!) is a dynamic young man who is certainly doing a wonderful job of living up to his potential that won him the 'yuva kala bhArati' award, and integrating his 'Indian' life with his 'American' life very seamlessly, for which he (and his parents) deserve every praise. I have personally enjoyed his energy and passion when he's played for many musicians...

VK RAMAN · Post by **VK RAMAN** » 23 Jul 2009, 19:46

Encouragement is part of rasikAs blood.

lakshmanan · Post by **lakshmanan** » 23 Jul 2009, 21:37

I hope to attend Mysore Manjunath concert in NYC on friday in which Rohan is supposed to play. Can't guarentee, but shall try to post a review.