Piano Recital by Ms Amba Punjabi

At Goethe Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai
#4, Rutland Gate, 5th Street, Chennai 600 006

Programme

Part I - Classical Music
J S Bach - Prelude No.1 C-major (2m 00s)
Brahms Hungarian Dance Nr 5 (4.30)
Beethoven - Adagio from Moonlight Sonata (5.00)
Mozart - Sonata Nr 16 - KV 545 (13.00)
Schumann - Traumerei (1.30)
Louis-Claude Daquin - Le Coucou (4.00)
Mike Cornick - Creepy Conga (2.00)

Part II - Cross-Over compositions
for Piano and Orchestra (by Mohan Narayanan)

"Rach" based on the first 10 Piano notes from
Rachmaninov's Piano Concert No 3 (3.00)

"Scarlatti - Just Drums" (3.00)

"Inside the Boat" (5.00)
Inspired by the Theme music (Klaus Doldinger) of the award winning 1982 German Film "Das Boot"
- In commemoration of the film's Silver Jubilee Year.

Profile
Amba began learning the keyborad at the age of 7. It started out as a hobby and she had, like most children, a casual interest in music. Soon she began taking music lessons from Mrs. Thelma, who noticed that Amba was able to repeat a tune once she had heard it.

Her hobby was fine-tuned when she met at a piano recital, a very close family friend, the Chennai based music composer and playwright, Mohan Narayanan. They decided to work together towards widening Amba's exposure to western music, including the recent phenomenon of cross-over music and the past 16 months has been a truly enriching experience for Amba.

As a first step, Amba moved from the electronic keyboard to an acoustic piano, which by itself was an uplifting experience. Amba has also appeared for her 3rd Grade Trinity piano examination, which she passed with flying colours. While Amba steadily progressed with the traditional classical piano works of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, Mohan was composing for Amba cross-over music for piano and orchestra, based on classical works of composers such as Scarlatti, Rachmaninov as well as jazz music by the German composer, Klaus Doldinger.

Amba plays on the acoustic piano to the electronic instrumentations and percussion accompaniments recorded on a minus-1 track CD.

Listening to a 40 min performance by Amba, Mr. & Mrs. Albano Mueller of Germany, who promote young talent from overseas to their country, extended an invitation to Amba and Mohan for a concert tour in May/June 2007. Starting with the first concert on 18th May organized by the town Schweim (near Dusseldorf) at its 450 year Martfeld castle, they will be performing in 8 venues including a church in Essen during its Sunday service on 20th May and in Berlin, before travelling to Rumania for additional performances there.

In this recital ahead of her European tour, Amba will be sharing her repertoire with Chennai's music lovers.