Winner of the Inversion Ensemble Competition, USA, 2021
Winner of the Vox Nova Chorale Competition, USA, 2016. 

Performed by Vox Nova Chorale (Director: Vicki Peter)

Program Note:
Mary Elizabeth Frye's beautiful poem has provided solace and comfort for generations across the world.  Translated into various languages, this poem has traveled a long way from its origins as a text written to comfort a grieving friend. No matter its storied history, it remains a timeless source of peace.

I was personally drawn to Frye's vivid imagery. The various depictions of nature inspired me to compose a ragamalika: a garland of ragas, the emotive scales of Indian classical music. Above all, the quiet elegance of her text conveys a message of hope that I aspired to capture musically.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep (2016)

Commissioned by the Yale Glee Club. Director: Jeff Douma

Program Note:
"Lingua Tonga is a joyful homage to the rich, multihued music of the Hindi film industry, often known as Bollywood. I have long loved the Hindi songs and scores of composers such as S.D. and R.D. Burman, Mohammed Zahur Khayyam, A.R. Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, and Amit Trivedi, to name just a few. Throughout this piece, I have sought to evoke elements of Hindi film music, such as their style of ornamentation, common patterns of swaras (notes), and the rapid orchestral gestures found in Indian film BGM (background music). In many Romance languages, "Lingua" means tongue or language. The non-lexical syllables of this piece rely heavily on the tongue articulator. Like Indian film music itself, this piece reflects cultural merging: here, syllables of South Asian languages are pronounced with English consonants. "Tonga," one of the first sounds in the piece, is therefore meant to sound something like "tongue-ah." But a tonga (or tanga) is also a type of carriage in South Asia, making the non-lexical Lingua Tonga nonetheless a vehicle of expression. As a child, I didn't necessarily comprehend the Hindi and Urdu lyrics of Bollywood songs– but this music, to me, was still full of meaning. We don't always have to understand in order to know, to feel, and to love." 
– Shruthi Rajasekar

Lingua Tonga (2023)

World Premiere Performance by Yale Voxtet (conducted by Gabriel Crouch). December 2021.

Three Songs From Athena: I. Morning Song (2018)

Sun in your tomatoes,
wind in the yellow lilies,
bees secure their futures,
how does the earth turn
but by gravity?

How certain I am
of loving you, papa,
and how certain,
like the bee, of leaving.

No, what do I know
of bees' desires?
What do I know of wind?
Except it carries me
out the narrow door,
defying gravity,
defying gravity.

-Athena Kildegaard
Text commissioned by the composer

Performers: Shruthi Rajasekar (soprano), Jessica Arnold (piano). Recorded live by Andrés Villalta in Taplin Auditorium, May 2018

Three Songs From Athena: II. Leaving Home (2018)

For Sue who gave me seashells
with their echoes

For Diane and your violin--
for those lazy afternoons of arpeggios

For June whose eye for warblers
taught me patterns
and surprise

For Maeve with your lullabies

For Barb and Liz and Nancy--
how we steamed clams
and sliced fennel tissue thin
and fed a dozen friends

For Tanya, how you let me call
at two or three and made me bread
with cherry jam and rubbed my feet

and Margaret, so much my sister
though you weren't

How else could I get by?
How else could I get by?

-Athena Kildegaard
Text commissioned by the composer 

Performers: Shruthi Rajasekar (soprano), Jessica Arnold (piano). Recorded live by Andrés Villalta in Taplin Auditorium, May 2018

Three Songs From Athena: III. Friends (2018)

German Text:
Laß uns auf dich sehen,
Laß das Licht
Deines Worts uns heller scheinen 
Und dich jederzeit treu meinen.

-Author: Anonymous, from the tenor aria of J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV6 (1725). 

Sanskrit Text:
man manā bhava mad-bhaktho 
mad yājī mām namaskuru 
mām evaisyasi yuktvaivam 
ātmānam mat-parāyanah
mām evaisyasi satyam te 
pratijāne priyo ‘si me

-Lines 1-4 (Bhagvad Gita 9.34); lines 5-6 (Bhagvad Gita 18.65). Krishna is addressing the mortal Arjuna.

German Translation:
Let us look upon You, 
Let the light 
of Your word shine brightly upon us
and always bring You faithfully to mind.

Sanskrit Text:
Think of Me always, 
follow the path of devotion,
offer your humble worship to Me 
and you will come to Me. 
Being completely devoted, you will surely come to Me;
I promise you this, for you are My very dear friend.

-Translations by Shruthi Rajasekar


Performers: 
-SSAA ensemble: Meredith Hooper, Paige Kunkle, Maddy Kushan, Rosamond van Wingerden
-Carnatic vocalist: Shruthi Rajasekar

Recorded live by Andrés Villalta in Taplin Auditorium, May 2017

Image captured at the Chapel in Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. Credit to Nick Barberio

Devotee (2017)

Conducted by Maestro Michael Pratt. Recorded live by Andrés Villalta in the Lewis Center for the Arts Forum, New Jersey, USA, May 2018.

Note:
Searching for Sanctuary was composed during a period of grief. I was privately struggling while publicly maintaining commitments, but that discrepancy could not be sustained in music. For several consecutive nights, I was unable to compartmentalize and compose; finally, I gave into my feelings and the piece began to unfold. Writing with all of that emotion tired & drained me, but the catharsis eventually healed me, too. The motif of “Redemption” is one of my personal favorites— it is a standing reminder to me, and perhaps others, that even if it seems impossible in the present, this, too, will pass.

Image captured at Cayuga Lake, Ithaca, New York, USA.

Searching for Sanctuary (2018)

Dagian: to dawn (Old English)
for two violins

Recorded at Royal College of Music, London, UK, December 2016. Performed by Solène and Sarah LeVan.

Image captured at Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Shruthi Rajasekar's Album

Dagian à deux (2016)

Gaanam, the noun form of “singing” in Sanskrit, explores ways through which the treatment of the voice in Carnatic (South Indian classical) music can be incorporated into ensemble work. 
---
I: The soloists’ alapanas (rhythmically-loose melodies) are rooted in idiomatic phrases of the raga, Kalyani (similar to the Lydian mode).
II: a few soprano and alto voices develop the alapanas of the soloists in the style of a vrittham (rhythmically-loose melodic phrases that set fragments of significant text). 
III: This helix continues while being punctuated by rhythmic syllables from the choir. The soloists then have the opportunity to sing of the power of music, but the rhythmic emphasis grows and eventually takes over, resulting in a recitation of the mora, a recognizable component of most Carnatic percussion solos. 
IV: In the aftermath of the bombastic mora, the choir ponders the concept of musical humility, culminating in a different kind of celebration.
---
Text excerpted from poetry by legendary Carnatic composers Sri Thyagaraja and Sri Subramaniam Bharathi 

Conducted by Maestro Gabriel Crouch. Performed by the Princeton University Glee Club. Soloists: Sarah Kim Baber (soprano), Calvin Wentling (tenor), Eli Berman (bass)
Recorded live by Jim Allington in Richardson Auditorium, March 2018
Winner of the 4th ORTUS International New Music Competition 2020
ASCAP Morton Gould 2019 Finalist

Gaanam (2018)

Excerpts of the projects and pieces premiered in 2018. 

Order:
1. Goddess, for ten horns (M. Gloria Yin, with Nivanthi Karunaratne's and Allison Halter's horn ensemble)
2. Soneto XVII, an SATB setting of Pablo Neruda​'s eponymous poem (M. Philip Brunelle, with VocalEssence​ Ensemble Singers)
3.  Der Hexenmeister, for piano, two violins, and soprano with text by Goethe (Matthew Wang​, Jason Polychronakos​, Kristin Hauge​, and Shruthi Rajasekar)
4. Son of Pandu, for string orchestra (M. Mark Hyczko​, with New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra​)
5. Three Songs from Athena, for soprano and piano with text by Athena Kildegaard​ (Shruthi Rajasekar and Jess Arnold)
6. Music for Sebastian Cox​'s "A Puppet Story" (Fumika Mizuno​, Haeun Jung​, Noah Pacis​, David Kim​, and John Hoffmeyer​)
7. Gaanam, an SATB setting of excerpts of Sri Thyagaraja's and Sri Bharathiyar's poetry (M. Gabriel Crouch​, with Princeton University Glee Club and soloists Eli Berman​, Calvin Wentling​, and Sarah Baber​)
8. Music for Fiona Bell​'s "Letters and Dreams", directed by Jhor van der Horst​
9. Raw Heart, an SATB setting of excerpts of Danielle Sosin's prose (M. Gloria Yin, with members of Contrapunctus XIV​)
10. Searching for Sanctuary, for chamber orchestra (M. Michael Pratt, with the MUS 208 orchestra ensemble)
11. The Letter, an opera scene (with M. Andrew Lovett​, Sarah Le Van​, Solène Le Van, Peter Foster, and Shruthi Rajasekar)
12. Drone On, electronic composition
13. the forgotten monologue, for solo voice (Alexandra Porter​)

2018: EXCERPT CHAIN

bloom, for horn and piano. Available for other instruments + piano; contact Shruthi.

Note: 
blossom is flowery. pun intended. 
bloom carries loom. and gloom.

it takes endless patience, love, and care for bloom.
in the face of overwhelming Life, bloom is a little bud of resilience.

bloma in Old and Middle English: 
1. flower
2. superior
3. lump of metal 
we're sometimes all three. 

bloom was written in Bloomsbury in the spring of 2019.

---
Written for Nivanthi Karunaratne.
Performed by Nivanthi Karunaratne (horn) and Minji Nam (piano), Yale School of Music.

bloom (2019)

Text:
politicians have prohibited women from making decisions.
Here is what transpired: she was reading a letter.
she was warned.
Here is what transpired: she was reciting the words of a great woman.
she was warned to sit down and be silent.

but nevertheless, she
Here is what transpired. She appeared to violate the rule. 
but nevertheless, she continues.
--
All text taken from the U.S. Congressional Record of February 7, 2017, in which Senate Republicans notably interrupted and silenced Senator Warren's speech. 

Commissioned and performed by M. Jennifer Lester and The Seraphim Singers. Recorded live in Cambridge, MA, USA: March 2020. 
--
Program Note:
During the 2017 U.S. Senate hearings of the nomination of Republican Senator Jeff Sessions to the position of U.S. Attorney General by President Trump, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts provided testimony assessing his fitness for the position by quoting an earlier letter to the Senate from civil rights leader Coretta Scott King. But her speech was interrupted by Republican senators who deemed that she had violated a Senate rule in which Senators cannot impugn their colleagues. Tensions between the political parties were already high at this Senate session, which occurred a few weeks after the inauguration of President Trump, and other Democratic senators vehemently opposed this decision, but the ruling remained. For the rest of the hearing, Senator Warren was not permitted to speak.

In his now-infamous words about this prohibition, Republican Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell noted that Senator Warren had been given a warning but had “nevertheless persisted" in speaking. Perhaps to his chagrin, these words were subversively transformed into a feminist slogan. "Nevertheless, she persisted" has become a broader statement about womxn continuing despite adversity. 

To understand the roots of this movement, I studied the transcript record of the original incident. In returning to this moment, I was struck by how the various accounts of what occurred were viewed by everyone involved as definitive truths. "Here is what transpired," Senator McConnell intoned, as if his words were indisputable. But what happened on February 7, 2017? Was it the silencing of womxn? Was it a rule needlessly or even recklessly broken? Was it chaos? Was it order? Did it mean nothing? Did it mean... everything? These conflicting truths are all too familiar to us. Yet in spite of our present vitriolic stasis, in which many clamor to be heard but not much is said, I hold this fragile hope: that she, nevertheless, continues.

Nevertheless

Winner of the 2018 Composers Guild of New Jersey Award 
Performed by Musica Vitae, Växjö Konserthus, Sweden, with M. Per Tengstrand

Program Note:
King Pandu had five sons; together, they were known as the Pandavas. The Pandavas' story is told in the ancient Hindu epic poem Mahabhaaratha. "Son of Pandu" explores the character of his third son, Arjuna, the hero of the Mahabhaaratha.

Arjuna was a powerful warrior and was especially known for his skill in archery. At the same time, he was a spiritual devotee of various gods; he would meditate for months and even years. Arjuna's most
important contribution to Hinduism was his conversation with God Krishna during the midst of a war, detailed in the sacred Bhagvat Gita. As related in the Mahabhaaratha, Arjuna was supposed to raise arms against his cousins to secure the greater good; in his moral dilemma, he turned to Krishna. The advice he received has become the core tenet for practitioners of Hinduism: Krishna told him to do his dharma-- his duty.

For many reasons, Arjuna was much more than the 'son of Pandu': in significance, he has surpassed Pandu. Additionally, the king died relatively early on, and so Arjuna relied most on his mother Kunti for parental guidance. Finally, according to some interpretations, Arjuna's father was the God Indra. Nonetheless, Arjuna was the sort to always remember and respect those who loved and supported him; this piece, then, is as much an homage to the vigor and greatness of this mythic figure as it is an acknowledgment of those who have touched us in immeasurable ways.

Son of Pandu (2018)

Indian-American composer & vocalist. Please visit my website (www.shruthirajasekar.com) and contact me at shruthirmusic@gmail.com

Shruthi Rajasekar

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