The Chennai Twestival Day 2 was a rip roaring event as Subject to Change performed their acoustic music concert at the AFM Auditorium.The audience, mainly consisting of youngsters, were treated with an absolutely awesome concert by Benny Dayal, Anisha Verghese, Abraham Verghese, Anjana R, Aakash Jacob and Toby Joseph, who comprise Subject to Change, performing pop, rock, Tamil film and Malayalam songs.

They started off with the Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Love the One You’re With and followed it up with Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. That was followed by a brilliant rendition of One of Us by The Cranberries. What’s Up by 4-Non Blondes was performed so well that it merited a repeat performance. The surprise of the evening was of course the beautiful cover of Roja Poo Aadi from Agni Nakshatram by Ilaiyaraja. Though Benny Dayal declared that the next song was an Ilaiyaraja one, he kept the suspense on which song it was going to be and everyone was pleasantly surprised when this gem came up. Dear Prudence(The Beatles) was well received by the crowd as was the final medley of songs by, who else, A.R Rahman! The final act was their signature song - Cindy that brought the crowd together and also made everyone laugh their hearts out.

The young crowd was made aware of The Prajnya Trust and that sure was a positive outcome from the evening. A few soundbytes to NDTV Hindu after the concert, and Chennai Twestival is right on track to becoming one of the best events in Chennai to look forward to in the future.

Snapshots from the concert and a hearty vote of thanks to those who made this happen will follow in the next 24 hrs!

Chennai Twestival Snapshots - Day 1

The Chennai Twestival kicked off today at the AFM Auditorium with a western classical music concert by Julie-Anne Derome and Gabriel Prynn. A brilliant performance by Gabriel Prynn on the cello and Julie-Anne Derome on the violin playing a myriad of compositions ranging in classical music of different eras.

Representatives of Prajnya, the NGO that Chennai Twestival is supporting, were present to create awareness about their campaign against gender violence. The 150+ strong crowd learned about The Prajnya Trust and their campaign through the flyers that were distributed and also by talking directly to the representatives.

The Chennai edition of the Twestival started off on a positive note and we have one more day of music and social work. Don’t miss the music concert by Subject to Change with Benny Dayal and friends at the AFM Auditorium at 7.30 pm on Saturday, September 12th. Tweet. Meet. Give. See you on Day 2!

The final details for the Chennai Twestival events are here!

Thursday, September 10th 2009 - Western Classical Music Concert by Julie-Ann Derome and Gabriel Prynn; 7 pm at the AFM Auditorium(New no. 24(Old no. 40) College Road, Chennai).

Saturday, September 12th 2009 - Music Concert by the group “Subject to Change” comprising of Benny Dayal, Aakash Jacob, Anisha Sarah Verghese, Anjana Raghavan, Abraham Verghese and Toby Joseph; 7.30 pm at the AFM Auditorium(New no. 24(Old no. 40) College Road, Chennai).

The event is non ticketed, so please bring your friends for two evenings of scintillating music! You would also get a chance to contribute to The Prajnya Trust as their donation boxes will be kept at the venue. Be a part of Chennai Twestival and Alliance Francaise Prelude 2009 and contribute to a good cause.

Official Radio partners of Chennai Twestival: Chennailive 104.8 FM

You can learn more about Subject to Change here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

We are excited to announce that the Chennai Twestival ‘09 preparations are almost complete!

The Chennai Twestival will be part of the PRELUDE fest organized by the Alliance Francaise - Madras. The events will be on September 10th and 12th.

The cause that Chennai Twestival will support is The Prajnya Trust. From their mission statement, “Prajnya’s vision is to help achieve peace, just and sustainable, which is the basis of a secure and happy life for all humans. Prajnya’s mission is to build a centre of scholarly excellence and creativity, known for its engagement with policy and its commitment to collaborative endeavour.”

Like we had announced, we repeat:

September 10th, 2009 - Western Classical Music Concert by Julie-Ann Derome and Gabriel Prynn; 7 pm at the AFM Auditorium.

September 12th, 2009 - Acoustic Music Concert by ….well, wait for it! We want to make it sound as surprising as possible! 7 pm at the AFM Auditorium.

Yes, please wait for it a bit more!

The official radio partners are Chennai Live 104.8 FM.

The entry to the events would be absolutely free of cost! There would be donation boxes of the trust at the venue to which you could contribute. And we would be happy if you do!

Some links for your use:

http://prajnya16days.blogspot.com/

http://keepingcount.wordpress.com/

http://prajnya.in/16d08medianie.htm

Annual Report:  http://prajnya.in/ar0809.pdf

The official Chennai Twestival twitter ID is : http://twitter.com/chntwestival

Well, yes some exciting news! The radio partners for the Chennai Twestival and the Alliance Francaise events would be Chennai Live 104.8 FM, Chennai’s only English radio station!

A few speed bumps along the way and we are all set to hold the Chennai Twestival 2009!

The Chennai Twestival organizers are partnering with Alliance Francaise to be a part of their PRELUDE  - an event where music, film, literature and exhibitions come together to create a unique experience. The Chennai Twestival will be part of the music events of PRELUDE. It would be a two day event, one of which will be a classical music performance and the other, acoustic and rock concert. The event details are here:

September 10th, 2009 - Western Classical Music Concert by Julie-Ann Derome and Gabriel Prynn; 7 pm at the AFM Auditorium.

September 12th, 2009 - Acoustic Music Concert by ….well, wait for it! We want to make it sound as surprising as possible! 7 pm at the AFM Auditorium.

The entry/ticket details, and more information about the cause that will benefit out of these events would be made available soon. Until then, watch this space!

Hello Chennai Tweeps,

There is information regarding the upcoming Chennai Twestival. The bottomline is - we are back!

The new edition of the Chennai Twestival will happen this September. Yes, it is less than a month away!

First of all for the benefits of all who don’t know what Twestival is, it would be better if you go and check http://twestival.com/ .

As Twitter continues to grow at a rate faster than any other web 2.0 app ever, few nice folks figured that we could do more with it. What everyone is familiar with is a tweetup. A tweetup is where random twitter uses who follow each other meet up in a city and generally socialize outside the web. In the real world. The idea behind Twestival is to take this ten steps further. But why is this more exciting than a tweetup? Precisely because:

1. It works like an unconference. You just don’t attend a Twestival but you are the organizer. Everything is through volunteering.
2. A diverse mix of twitter users and enthusiasts are represented.
3. Twestival supports an open cause in your city and gathers funds and awareness for the same. And that is the main reason behind the event.

Chennai is a vibrant city that has already placed it’s stamp on the web 2.0 world. Chennai has witnessed a number of events that owe their births to the social networking revolution. Some of them include startup camps, blogcamps, barcamps, photowalks, wiki camps etc. Chennai is also fondly referred to as the blogging capital of India as a number of frequently read blogs and celebrity bloggers are from this city that celebrated its birthday with splendor just last week.

So this is where we start. This is a shout out to all those excited twitter users and others who wish to volunteer in Chennai. Get up and get started. We would be needing volunteers who can help in the following areas:

• Sponsorship – Create a list of possible sponsors, send out sponsorship requests, coordinate with sponsors (Yes, we are open to sponsors!)
• Prizes – Coordinate prize donations for a raffle
• Logistics – Venue, Event management
• Volunteer – coordinate people to help on the night
• Entertainment – Music, local celebrities
• Technical – Video, wifi, sound and lighting
• PR/Marketing – To generate local publicity, printing, ensure bloggers and non tweeters who still want to participate.

All those who are interested in participating can reach us at:

http://twitter.com/LavaniaR

This blog and the communications would be managed by me and you can reach me at http://twitter.com/gradwolf

Cheers,

Aditya