Holden Chapel
ganavya (PhD, Department of Music, ’23) and Rajna Swaminathan (PhD, Department of Music, ’21) gather at Holden Chapel for a ritual gathering, where all those attending are welcome to move, sing, and pray with us. Languages sung include Tamil, English, Spanish.
Artists include: ganavya (voice, bass, ukulele), Rajna Swaminathan (voice, kanjira, mrudangam, piano), Utsav Lal (piano), Devon Gates (bass), Shahzad Ismaily (guitar), Kweku Sumbry (drumset), Vidya Doraiswamy (voice), Ganesan Doraiswamy (voice), and Anya Yermakova (dance).
With a voice described as “a thick ephemera” (New York Times), with an “aching emotional intensity” (JazzTimes), “extraordinary” (DownBeat), and “haunting” (All About Jazz) vocalist, scholar, and multi instrumentalist ganavya lives, learns, and loves fluidly from many frameworks and understandings. Her recent works include writing and singing the first Tamil words to win a Latin Grammy, featured solo vocalist on Grammy award-winning Songwrights Apothecary Lab (2021), leading a 3-day long spi/ritual gathering to honor Swami Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda titled Daughter of a Temple featuring esperanza spalding, Shabaka Hutchings, Immanuel Wilkins, Chris Sholar and many others (2022); solo vocalist and composer for the film this body is so impermanent… directed by Peter Sellars (2021); composition, dance and solo voice for Chapter 7: The Goddess directed by Peter Sellars, and Jerome Foundation commission Let’s Go Out and Play (2021). Ganavya holds graduate degrees in contemporary performance (Berklee College of Music), ethnomusicology (UCLA), and Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry (Harvard).
Her written work includes “shards of ether,” a collection of 101 essays for John Zorn’s Arcana: Musicians on Music series, “[ ]: on the Form behind form” for Journal of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, “earth sky” for Forecast, and contributing writer for Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding’s opera …(Iphigenia). She is the editor of an upcoming anthology of essays written by artists from the Daughter of a Temple gathering titled Journey to Turiyaloka, to be published by Minerva Projects.
Forthcoming projects include an opera-in-creation about her grandmother’s life directed by Peter Sellars and composed by Sivan Eldar (2025), audio album like the sky I’ve been too quiet produced by Shabaka Hutchings, audio album The Body of Reality featuring Leo Genovese (piano), Rajna Swaminathan (mrudangam) and Amir El Saffar, co-produced by Peter Sellars, and audio album / film Daughter of a Temple.
-
Rajna Swaminathan is an acclaimed mrudangam artist, composer, and scholar. Rajna has been described as “a vital new voice” (Pop Matters), creating “music of gravity and rigor… yet its overall effect is accessible and uplifting” (Wall Street Journal). In her music and research, she explores the undercurrents of rhythmic experience and emergent textures in collective improvisation. One of only a few women who play the mrudangam professionally, Rajna received her creative foundation on the instrument from her father, P.K. Swaminathan, and mrudangam legend Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman.
Through extensive experience performing in the Karnatik music and bharatanatyam scenes, an affinity for various streams of South Asian film/popular music, and deep collaborative work in New York’s jazz and creative music scene, Rajna developed experimental approaches to improvising on the mrudangam, piano, and voice. Rajna’s orientation as an improviser-composer blossomed through a search for resonance and fluidity among musical forms and aesthetic worlds. Her ensemble RAJAS has been a prominent medium for her expansive compositions, which involve a lattice of rhythmic, textural, and modal approaches. The ensemble’s sound has been described as “unlike any other on the scene” (New York Times), and their debut album, Of Agency and Abstraction (Biophilia Records, 2019), received much critical acclaim. The ensemble recently premiered and began touring a new suite, Apertures, commissioned and supported by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program (2019-2022).
Rajna’s scholarly work also intersects with her musical study and informs her creative curiosities. She was recently appointed as Assistant Professor of Music (Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology) at UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts. She holds a PhD in Music (Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry) from Harvard University, and degrees in Anthropology and French from the University of Maryland, College Park.
In addition to her work with RAJAS, Rajna has composed for JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, violinists Jennifer Koh and Lucia Lin, among others. Recent commissions include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Sawdust, Bang On A Can Marathon, and fellowships with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Rajna performs extensively in ensembles led by Vijay Iyer, Amir ElSaffar, Ganavya Doraiswamy, and Aakash Mittal. Her interdisciplinary work has included collaborations with playwright Anu Yadav, visual artist Zahyr Lauren, the Ragamala Dance Company, and poets Mahogany L. Browne, Sarah Kay, and Jon Sands.
-
This event is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
