I am on a visit from India and work on theology focussing mainly on influence of Carnatic music on South Indians who have converted to Christianity (like me), In March I attended a concert at Valaparaiso University in Indiana . It was the premier of a concert by two very young musicians, a Harvard-Julliard College educated violinist Ayano Ninomya and Michigan based mridangam artist Rohan Krishnamurthy. There were more than 400 people in the jam packed hall and apparently both the artists are quite well known.
The concert itself featured solos by the violinist and percussion and combined pieces specially composed at various thalams by US based composers. The most surprising piece was a Thyagaraj Pancharatna composed for the occasion with notation by a Chicago based composer. That and the mridangam solo seemed to have been very popular with the audience. Of course the Pancharatna piece did not have much gamakam but the standard of the violinist more than made up for that and the whole excercise was a fresh one. As the violinst herself said " she was in a trance" while practicing that piece. Looked like quite a few in the audience felt that way too!
Overall I got good stuff to work on my research too.