Hi friends, Happy New Year to everyone! Seems like a lot of change is happening in the last few weeks with President Obama taking over, Bollywood making a huge impact on Hollywood via Slumdogg..... I am of course so happy for my good friend A.R. Rahman for all the awards and nominations and wish the best for him.
Its been a time of change for me too, having welcomed my little daughter Katyayini into this world three weeks back and realizing that she could just be the world's youngest deadhead! (one afternoon, she was found sleeping to long, live jams of Fire on the mountain, Uncle John's Band and other miscellaneous goodies of hippiedom!) I am thrilled to see a film I composed the music for called 'Smile Pinki', get nominated for the Oscars in the "Best Documentary - short subject" category. This is a moving film telling the tale of two poor children in India who were born with a cleft lip whose lives are soon about to change, when a dedicated social worker finds a way out for them to undergo surgery and give them hope for a better future! The film is directed by acclaimed New York filmmaker Megan Mylan who had done wonderful films earlier such as 'The Lost Boys of Sudan'. Talking of change, this is also the first musical score that I did that's completely Hindustani music-based with an occasional passing nod to Carnatic (certainly no snakebanger's ball or ragabop type stuff in there)! I hope 'Smile Pinki' can make us all 'smile' at the Oscars and bring more change to those beautiful children! More info on Smile Pinki at http://www.principeproductions.org Nominations at http://www.oscars.com Smile Train - a great charity for cleft lip - http://www.smiletrain.org/ Hope to see you all soon! Oh, BTW, my web site has undergone a huge change and we just got it up there so check it out! Didn't realize I liked the word change so much, after all I did an album once called Be the Change, didn't I? Best, Prasanna http://www.guitarprasanna.com http://myspace.com/guitaristprasanna http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prasanna/7536103955
