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Asia Society and INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL Presents Vijay Iyer’s Tirtha Asia Society, 725 Park Ave, NYC April 1-2, 2011 L-R: Nitin Mitta, Vijay Iyer, Prasanna credit: Alan Nahigian   Tirtha is a phenomenal trio featuring three powerhouse musicians who at once honor and traverse the streams of tradition. The trio will launch their exciting new album,Tirtha, at the Asia Society.  Indian-American pianist-composer Vijay Iyer, Chennai-born guitarist-composer Prasanna, and Hyderabad native and tabla player Nitin Mitta are already highly accomplished artists who shift easily among multiple musical languages. Together, they have achieved a fully realized, deeply thoughtful, and truly innovative collaboration. Combining the elemental directness of rock, the chamber-like intimacy of raga, and bebop's hard, angular drive, Tirtha achieves a profound interplay of melody and rhythm that characterizes the best jazz.   TIRTHA : Vijay Iyer - Prasanna - Nitin Mitta      The Sanskrit word tirtha (THEER-tha) literally means a ford, or a shallow place in a river that can be easily crossed over. Within a spiritual context, tirtha denotes a holy place near a body of water - somewhere where everyday struggles fall away, and where one passes easily into a deeper and more profound state of being. Aptly, Tirtha is now also the name of a phenomenal trio featuring three powerhouse musicians who at once honor and traverse the streams of tradition. It is also the name of their exciting new album on ACT.   Individually, Indian-American pianist-composer Vijay Iyer, Chennai (formerly Madras)-born guitarist-composer Prasanna, and Hyderabad native and tabla player Nitin Mitta are already highly accomplished artists who shift easily among multiple musical languages. Together, they have achieved a fully realized, deeply thoughtful, and truly innovative collaboration. Combining the elemental directness of rock, the chamber-like intimacy of raga, and bebop’s hard, angular drive, Tirtha achieves a profound interplay of melody and rhythm that characterizes the best jazz.   In his album notes, the award-winning Iyer describes the group’s genesis: “Tirtha (the band) formed in response to an invitation. In 2007 I was asked to put together a concert celebrating 60 years of Indian independence. Normally I’ve steered clear of fusion experiments that attempt to mix styles - to “create something,” as John Coltrane famously admonished, “more with labels, you see, than true evolution.” For this event I hoped to avoid those pitfalls, and offer something personal. “I invited along Prasanna and Nitin Mitta, two outstanding musicians from India who have settled in the States. None of us had collaborated previously, but at our first rehearsal we felt a jolt of recognition. There was no question of “fusion,” no compromise, no attempt to sound more or less “Indian”; just a fluid musical conversation among three individuals, an atmosphere of camaraderie, a sense of beginning.” Prasanna continues the thought from his unique vantage: “Tirtha is a logical extension of what I have been doing for many years in my own way - looking at global music today from the perspective of a Carnatic [south Indian classical] musician and looking at the rich tradition of Carnatic music from a contemporary Jazz/Rock/Classical musician's perspective. In a trio that fosters as much space as Tirtha does, these concepts take on a musical life that is shared with a unique synergy. Music eventually finds its own simple solution.”   These artists’ musical and cultural experiences are part of their creative DNA. Immediately, for example, you hear the distinctly South Indian, meticulous ornamentations of Prasanna’s guitar in dialogue with Iyer’s gloriously spacious harmonic palette, and Mitta’s superbly crisp Hindustani (north Indian classical) grooves and virtuosic, grounding presence. You hear familiar structural elements of jazz, Hindustani, and Carnatic music. However, the group completely shuns any musical clichés or previously heard “fusions” of those genres.   Instead you hear a band with ideas: the Reich-like rhythmic shifts of the driving opener “Duality”; the rhythmic vocalizing and drummed responses on “Tribal Wisdom”; “Abundance,” an Ellingtonian hymn with Carnatic nuances; the surprise post-punk anthem “Gauntlet”; the subtle majesty of the title track; the shimmering melodies of “Entropy and Time.” The pieces (alternately composed by Iyer and Prasanna) methodically open up to reveal the beating heart of the band’s improvisations: dynamic, astonishingly alive, with a deep sense of purpose.   Tabla player Nitin Mitta describes what the band means to him: “The Great Vocalist Ustad Amir Khan once said music is something which the Soul speaks and the Soul hears. Tirtha to me is this spiritual journey. Music is universal and Tirtha is a true example of this; a combination of Jazz, Carnatic and Hindustani, elements of each merging together to evolve into music with no tags. I have never felt more challenged thus far in bringing out my creativity as I do with Tirtha.”   Tirtha at once acknowledges and celebrates its diverse heritages, and yet is not restricted or easily reduced to any stereotypes about who these musicians are - or who they “should” be. What the band offers instead is an impassioned and beautiful act of self-definition.   Iyer summarizes: “For us Tirtha represents a unity that only recently became possible, after several decades of South Asian global mobility, transition, and flow: it’s the sound of a new reality.”      Tickets: $16 members/seniors/students with ID; $20 nonmembers. For further details: visit Tickets.AsiaSociety.org   Asia Society's web site: http://asiasociety.org/events-calendar/tirtha-vijay-iyer-–-prasanna-–-nitin-mitta Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid= 209434532405377 OPENING NIGHT GALA: tickets on sale now. New York Indian Film Festival Eleventh Annual IAAC Film Festival May 4-8, 2011 U.S. Premiere of Disney’s Do Dooni Chaar (with English subtitles) Directed by Habib Faisal Starring Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh Kapoor Synopsis:   Life is tough for Mr. Duggal who works at school as a Math teacher, lives in a Government allocated two room apartment in Delhi and is coping with double digit inflation rates and single digit increments in his salary. Add to that, a teenage daughter with high living ambitions, a fast-track son and a wife who love the good life. The life of the Duggal’s passes by in simply taking care of the basics and surviving from month to month. Until one day, they decide to dream… dream to own a car and move up in life from a two –wheeler to a four-wheeler. A dream that’s not easy by any stretch of imagination for the single income family. Mr. Duggal however, has made up his mind - and his male ego will not let him change his promise to his family. What follows is a comic journey of chaos, realizations, calculations, confrontations and bonding. Join the journey that will drive them, and you, pretty much nuts.   6 pm Red carpet at Paris Theatre 7 pm Welcome - Aroon Shivdasani, IAAC Executive & Artistic Director Opening Address - Ambassador Meera Shankar Screening of Habib Faisal’s “ Do Dooni Chaar”. Starring Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh Kapoor Post-screening discussion with Director and cast moderated by Aseem Chhabra, Film Festival Director 9:30 pm Gala Benefit Dinner at Jumeirah Essex House   Individual Tickets: $500 red carpet screening, post-screening discussion w/Director & cast, and Gala Benefit dinner   Tables of 10: Reserved seating (Red carpet screening, discusson & Gala Benefit dinner) Emerald Table of 10 $25,000 ($23,000 tax deductible) Ruby Table of 10 $20,000 ($18,000 tax deductible) Saphire Table of 10 $15,000 ($13,000 tax deductible) Diamond Table of 10 $10,000 ($8,000 tax deductible) Friendship Table of 10 $5,000 ($3,000 tax deductible)   Please send ticket/table request details (# of tickets, table denomination, return address) with your cheque to: Indo-American Arts Council, 517East 87th St., Suite 1B, New York, NY 10128. For information, visit our website at www.iaac.us INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL Presents Best of the Best Tribeca Performing Arts Center, NYC April 2, 2011 Come witness America's Best South Asian Dance Crews compete against each other at Best of the Best (BOB) on April 2nd, 2011 in New York City. BOB is known as the “Olympics of South Asian Dance Competitions” and invites the winners from the top Bhangra, Raas-Garba and Bollywood/Fusion competitions around the nation to compete at BOB. The competition will be held at The Tribeca Performing Arts Center in downtown New York City. This years teams have performed on primetime television and even in front of the White House. Package tickets to the show plus afterparty can only be purchased for a few more days. The package deals are $50, which includes Orchestra Seating for the show and a ticket to the after-party, no waiting in line. Group discount rates are still available only until the end of this week 3/27/11. Please contact sam@bobcomp.com for more details. Tickets on sale starting at $25. To purchase tickets : http://bobcomp.com/tickets. For full details about BOB, please visit bobcomp.com Support IAAC and shop the IAAC online store Follow IAAC on Facebook Follow IAAC on Twitter Check IAAC events on YouTube Become a member of IAAC Check IAAC Google Calendar Make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE donation to the IAAC !

The Indo-American Arts Council is a 501 ©3 not-for-profit secular arts organization passionately dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of artists of Indian origin in the performing arts, visual arts, literary arts and folk arts. For information please visit www.iaac.us Indo-American Arts Council Inc. 517 East 87th St, Suite 1B, New York, NY 10128. Phone: 212 594 3685 Email: admin@iaac.us. Web: www.iaac.us

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