R. Prasanna Biography 
R. Prasanna is an accomplished Carnatic musician who plays electric guitar. He is also a jazz musician and is associated with fusion music. He is the founder President of Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, India's first professional college for contemporary music. He has also performed for many Indian movies. His exceptional proficiency over guitar overpowered his inclination to present the serenity of classical Carnatic in its subtle form. He composed music for 2009 Oscar-winning documentary Smile Pinki, apart from several movies and musical concerts. He did the orchestra work of the theme music of Oscar nominated movie – Lagaan, composed by Rahman.
Prasanna started his formal learning of classic music at the age of 10. He studied under Dr. C.G.Shanmugaraj and then Samuel Thangadurai. After learning under a few more gurus, he started formal instruction with TiruvarurBalasubramaniam in 1984. Five years later he gave his first professional Carnatic music concert at the Madras Music Academy. For a brief period he learnt under violinist A. Kanyakumari and gave music concerts in Chennai for some time. He completed engineering in Naval Architecture from Indian Institute of Technology and was awarded an Honours Bachelor's degree from the Berklee College of Music in 1999.
Prasanna is associated with fusion music and started the first music institution in India which teaches contemporary music -Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music. He is associated with "Tirtha" project with pianist Vijay Iyer. He released a DVD instruction titled – Ragamorphism in 2004. He was honoured with Life Time Achievement Award in 2003 by KanchiKamakotiPeetham. Prasanna has performed Jazz with Belgian band, Victor Wooten and SathyaSai Baba Bhajans, apart from several Carnatic concerts.
Published: N/A
Updated: November 03, 2015
