One balmy evening last July a few of us NMCers were driving home after a rigorous rehearsal for our Drive East performance. We were deep in discussion about how we would present our concert. We prided ourselves on not settling for the usual announcements that accompanied Carnatic music items, but rather, on being fun, creative and different. Our audiences ranged from the complete neophyte to the dyed-in-the-wool aficionado and we needed to engage and capture their attention in a meaningful way. The conversation meandered to another favorite topic - food. Rehearsals made us hungry. Glitzy restaurants glinted by in the night. Somebody described an amazing meal she had eaten - divinely delicious, but also described in such over-the-top terms that she still got the giggles thinking about it. And then something clicked and I thought - why not merge together NMC's top loves, food and music, and weave in, just for fun, the grandiloquent vocabulary that some of New York's restaurants used to describe their wares?
It was the matter of an evening to turn the idea into a script. What fun we had with it, as NMC's latent thespian talents found full expression! And here it is - our concert, presented as a fine-dining experience, with music as the bill of fare. I do hope you enjoy reading it. In order that you don't go hungry, I have included tasting-size portions of some of the items. Just click on the links to watch the videos.