As you’re now aware, five time grammy award winning musician Victor Wooten is touring 4 Indian Cities, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkatta and Mumbai conducting concert-cum-workshop, during 4 and 8 April, 2010.
The innovative bassist, Wooten, is touring as a part of fund-raising project by Chennai based Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM, www.sam.org.in) – an ambitious project of guitarist Prasanna (composer of Oscar winning documentary Smile Pinky, who also heads SAM as President). In addition to the performing, the celebrated bassist will also conduct bass workshops for music enthusiasts in Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Mumbai.
Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM) will be the first ever professional college of music in India to offer a range of programs in contemporary music that includes Rock, Jazz, Classical and World music and will include world renowned musicians as its faculties. With courses in Voice, Guitar, Piano, Bass, Drums and Indian Percussion performance as its focus, SAM will commence its first six month diploma certificate program in July 2010. SAM is located at Marg Swarnabhoomi, an ambitious 1200 acre township off Mahabalipuram, on ECR, about 100 kms from the city of Chennai. Swarnabhoomi houses residential complexes, SEZ and prestigious educational institutions, including Virginia Tech campus and others.
Arguably, Victor Wooten is one of world’s most well known bass guitarist and member of the Grammy-winning super group Béla Fleck & The Flecktones. He has performed with artists such as Dave Mathews Band, Branford Marsalis, Chick Corea, Dave Matthews, Prince and Bobby Mc Ferrin among others. On his India tour, Wooten will be performing along with guitarist Prasanna, S. Karthik (ghatam) and Bangalore Amrit (kanjira).
This is not the first time that SAM has organized such a workshop. In August 2009, SAM conducted a residential workshop for musicians where jazz guitarists David Gilmore, bassist Mike Pope and drummer Rodney Holmes taught budding musicians finer nuances of the art and also gave some inspiring performances. View photos and videos
The first concert, held at Chennai, was a soaring success, where the Prasanna-Victor Duo got standing ovation from the public, who gathered in large numbers, despite being an IPL evening, proving a point that cricket is not everything.
Yesterday, the team performed in the garden city of Bengaluru and tomorrow they’ll be performing at Kolkata. Below is the schedule of the Victor Wooten-Prasanna-India tour and workshop.
Concert/workshop schedule
4 April, Sun Chennai Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall
5 April, Mon Bangalore Cathedral High School Auditorium
7 April, Wed Kolkata G D Birla Sabhaghar
8 April, Thurs Mumbai Sri Shanmukhananda Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Auditorium
Photos by Kiruba Shankar & Shrinidhi Hande. Part of the text is sourced from Radioandmusic.com. Stay tuned to this blog for more updates
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