HYDERABAD: Prasanna, 47, ‘The living hope for quality music’ as quoted by AR Rahman is certainly the guitar statement of this century. This Chennai born artist’s prolific body of work is set to get as diverse and integrated as it can get on at a performance today at The Moonshine Project (7 pm onwards). Other artists like Catharsis, Capricio, Niteesh, Sagar and Krishnan will also join the musical bonanza. “I don’t know what I’m going to play, but I just want to make people happy,” says Prasanna.
Techie who loves music
He is an engineer graduating from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and an internationally acclaimed guitarist in contemporary jazz, rock and blues, a magna cum laude graduate of Berklee College of Music. Prasanna’s signature music typically comprises of Carnatic music as a core and blends with contemporary western music.
Prasanna remembers his first instance of showing interest in music when he was about 4 years old when he heard to a neighbour from Ranipet playing beautiful tunes on the guitar. He grew up listening to a lot of tracks by Maestro, Ilayaraja and rock music of his times. Carnatic music diffused into his senses when he heard his sister, Deepa learning Carnatic music at home.
The Academy Award-winning musician can now lure his audience to the Guitar being his lead instrument along with the Base, Piano and Percussion. When Prasanna calls himself a professional musician, he does not omit any genre of music. All kinds of music interest him. “I create my own genre of music. I put together all the forms of music that sounds pleasing to my ear to create music,” says the musical visionary.
The instrumental factor
All instruments deliver different a different emotion and milieu of its own kind. Similarly, Prasanna chose the versatile guitar as the focus on guitar is found in all kinds of music.He believes in giving his best shot at playing the guitar. Now, the gig comes to him like breathing. It is effortless, he says. When the horizon of music is this wide in an individual’s life, it is difficult to point out even his favourite tracks. He is often bereft of speech at this question. We could also owe this difficulty to the variety of influences in music he had throughout his life.
He has performed with luminaries such as Illayaraja, A.R. Rahman, Jordan Rudess, Esperanza Spalding and others. In 2006, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Carnatic music. The longest and the most rewarding association he has ever had is with his dearest friend AR Rahman who he has worked with right from his earlier Tamil films.