Chorus America - Shruthi Rajasekar

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.

Star of Rohini

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)

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

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