Vytas Nagisetty (born March 8, 1971), frequently known with the stage name just as Vytas, is an Indian-born musician from

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

. Vytas has recorded a number of

film scores A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

for American and French motion pictures, and has written songs appearing on soundtrack albums and numerous independent recordings. He also worked extensively as a bassist in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

during the 1990s.

Biography

Nagisetty was born in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, India, and raised in Toledo, Ohio. The son of a Lithuanian physicist and an Indian mathematician, he began playing music at the early age of 5. Having started on trumpet, and successively switching to piano, and then bansuri flute, Vytas finally settled into electric bass as his main instrument by the age of 10. At 14, he added guitar to his repertoire and began writing songs. By the age of 17, he was selling tapes of original songs through local record stores. After high school, he studied music and French at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. His musical education focused on

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

, and performance in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and classical music. He studied double bass under Steve Tramontozzi, the principal bassist of the San Francisco Symphony.

Musical career

Film Scores

Vytas' musical studies brought him to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, where he composed the score for Morgan J. Freeman's film ''Godard disait que..''. Later when he moved to New York City, Vytas was favored by a number of independent film makers for his ability to compose and produce music, as well as perform on several instruments. This range of abilities allowed him single-handedly produce and perform the score for an entire film. In 1998, Vytas composed the score for the Freeman film ''

Desert Blue ''Desert Blue'' is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Morgan J. Freeman, starring Brendan Sexton III, Kate Hudson, Christina Ricci, Casey Affleck, Sara Gilbert Sara Gilbert (born Sara Rebecca Abeles; January 29, 197 ...

'', which marked his first American film project. He would go on to compose music for several other studio and independent films, including Freeman's '' The Cherry Picker''.

Ensemble projects

Both in France and subsequently back in the United States, Vytas has played in dozens of jazz and rock bands, including with noted jazz artist Pharoah Sanders. He has been active in bands in the

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and currently, Toledo. Vytas released a 5-song EP in 2007 called ''Space Cadet''. The independently produced album drew positive reviews from the Toledo Blade, the ''Toledo City Paper'', and the ''Toledo Free Press''. It features Vytas and his Electric Outfit, a power trio consisting of Vytas on vocals and guitar, Jason Quick on bass, and John "Bubba" Baker on drums and vocal harmony. In March 2007, Todd Ovall joined the Electric Outfit on bass, replacing Jason Quick. The new formation is expected to release their next CD, Sunny, in 2009.

Discography

* 1993 Godard disait que.. (film score) * 1998 Desert Blue (film score) * 1998 Desert Blue Original Soundtrack (two songs, credited as "Vytas Nagisetty" and "VDog, Funny Bone") * 1999 Zoo (film score) * 1999 Hostage (film score) * 2000 The Cherry Picker (film score) * 2000 The Opponent (film score) * 2007 Space Cadet (5-song EP, Vytas and his Electric Outfit) * 2008 Glass City (film score) * 2009 Sunny (18-song album, Vytas and his Electric Outfit, pending)

References

External links

* {{Authority control Songwriters from Ohio Living people 1971 births