How would you describe your orientation as a composer in the spectrum of music from traditional hindustani or carnatic music to western classical music to more popular contemporary music?
As a composer, I look for different ways to carry my tradition into new genres. That means that a lot of things can be relevant. Many Western musical settings combine well with Hindustani music, as long as the different genres are allowed to keep their credibility. I don’t try so much to dress up Indian music in Western clothes, as to create something that reflects a multicultural status quo.
Is there a relationship between your compositions and the work of other crossover Indian and western music projects, such as McLaughlin, Hussain and L. Shankar’s Shakti?
I love Shakti! They are my biggest inspiration, even though our musical expressions are different. I have listened so much to them over several years, so I am sure that they have influenced me a lot. They certainly have inspired me to make music, and to indulge in the more nerdy aspects of Indian music.
What is it like to work with classically trained musicians such as the Cikada Quartet on this music which has so much flavour and connection with traditional Indian string playing, while still being clearly composed music? The quality of the string playing matches so strongly with your own.
I have worked with the Cikadas since 2019, and they are one of the most versatile groups I know of. They are very strong and flexible both as individuals and as a group, and so quick to grasp what I was looking for. It also maybe helps that I am sort of a hybrid player: my training is both Western and Indian classical, so we have a lot of common stylistic ground.
What are your musical influences in these compositions?
It’s really the ragas. Otherwise, for example, has elements of minimalism and aleatorism, but is mainly about the essence of the two different raga tonalities. I listened a lot to the great masters like Pandit Ram Narayan, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Kishori Amonkar, Rashid Khan and several others, and they shaped my understanding of the raga. Light is more pop-ish, but still based on the Yaman raga. I feel the melody is a bit old-timey Bollywoodish. I love the Bollywood music of the 60s. Lotus is not raga-based as such, it’s in a straight minor key. It’s inspired by my wish to make something short, a simple statement without embellishments.
What is your compositional process? What role does improvisation play in your music? Is everything fully notated or is there room for improvisation?
I start by choosing which ragas and talas I will work with for the piece at hand. The decision can be based on a wish to explore and deepen my knowledge of a certain raga, or it can be purely emotional. I make melodies, patterns, tihais and taans (breaks/riffs), and basically just play my way into it on the violin and piano, as well as singing a lot. So the pieces are in a way born out of improvisation, but at some point – usually towards the end – I must go in and make decisions about structure and form. In a performance, a lot of what I do is improvised. My trio is almost like a jazz group, with a lot of split second decision-making and extended solos. When working with for example Cikada, who are not specialist improvisers in my genre, I use different methods to retain an element of improvisation. It can be aleatoric approaches, and prewritten phrases the players can combine as they see fit in the moment. And I encourage them to add some contemporary aesthetics, crush tones, ponticello, etc. So every performance is different, but that’s what makes the music what it is.