Jag Changa, our 2nd studio album, is a collection of our travels and dreams and inspirations over the last half a decade. We always wanted our album launch to be special and when Vijay and Anuj from OML came down to Bangalore and told us they wanted us to put together something no one had seen before at NH7, it was perfect!
Bangalore, at our favourite festival, with a free canvas to paint our dream picture. It was just perfect.
The last time we launched our album, it was in 2006, at the Bandra Amphitheater, with OML managing the show, and we had to call each and everyone we knew and get them to come and we managed to fill that amphitheater and were on top of the world when we did launch the album. We had to top that this time!
We’re making a documentary about the making of our album launch show because there is way too much for us to say and a LOT of work went in from so many different people to make this possible. But I would personally like to thank everyone who came together to make our dream come true.
The band – Raghu Dixit, Gaurav Vaz, Bryden Lewis, Parth Chandiramani, Adarsha Ramakumar, Anthony Kamal and Vinod Bangera.
Our musical collaborators – Darbuka Siva Prakash on the percussions, Jason Zachariah on the Trumpet, Praveen D. Rao on the Pakhwaj, Shruti Kamath on the Sitar, Daevo Khan Manganiyar on the Khartal.
Team Nritarutya – Mayuri Upadhya who put this whole thing together and under whose creative direction, this production came to life. Madhuri Upadhya who choreographed the exquisite dance on Rain Song.
Vishwa Kiran, Preethi Bharadwaj, Varsha Iyengar, Sangeeta Iyer, Matangi Keshavan, Shruti Suresh, Latha B.S, Shweta V Hegde, Monisha B.N, Akshay Mandlik, Pia Bunglowala, Ruchi Raveendran, Rohan Raj, Ashwin Kumar, Abhishek Singhania, Niranjan H, Swapnashree Bhasi, Masoom Parmar, and Geetha Ballal
The Dollu Kunitha Team from GKVK – Vinod Lobo, Prasad S, Jyothi Narayana A, PrabhuDeva DS, Ramesh K, Yashodara B, Ramasubbu V, Sujay V and ChandraMohan J and their Professor, Dr. N Narasimha who made the collaboration work!
The hand shadow puppeteers – Prahalad Acharya and Poornima Acharya
The “Tall Man” boys – Sarvana, Ralph, Jairam, Peter, Raja KM, Anand and Anthony
The light designer – Arun Murthy
Our set designers and production crew – Sridhara Murthy, Krishna R, and Manas
Stage technicians – Dinkar Nayak and Kalidas Shenoy
The awesome video production team – Vishwas Avathi and Chiranth Wodeyar from FStopro. The video for Amma was one of the highlights of the show!
Madan Kumar and Harsha Venkatramu for for working tirelessly behind the scenes to make our album copies and merch happen!
Arpan Peter who stepped up at the last minute when we needed it most and came through for us spectacularly!
Vijay Nair, Anuj Gupta and the entire team that makes NH7 Weekender, the festival happen. It is the best thing to have happened to Indian music.
I can’t thank each and every one of you enough for the work you put in. This has been the best show we have ever put up and it will only get better from here. The entire band is privileged to have awesome people like you we can count on!
To everyone else, Jag Changa has launched, please go get the album and spread the word, this music deserves to be heard by the whole wide world.
PS: Thanks Vishwas for these amazing photographs!