Gautam Tejas Ganeshan - voice, tambura

Rajna Swaminathan - mrudangam

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Gautam Tejas Ganeshan is on a fascinating, in-depth musical journey - one which continues until this very moment, and whose nature is well described by a name, from nearly twenty years ago, of an installation he once sang for: *Enter the Center* ( … which somebody watched from a bathtub, and while unloading the instruments for which he also had to change a flat tire.) Since then, he has brought "new music from an old tradition" (SFJAZZ) to the SF Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum (SF), the UC Berkeley Art Museum, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and much more - and has been called upon to guest-lecture and teach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Stanford Jazz Workshop, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and elsewhere.

His voice has been described as "a conduit for an otherworldly, transcendental energy" (SF Weekly) and as "eminently lyrical and supple" (SF Classical Voice) - and his approach as a whole as "affecting and bold..." (East Bay Express); "a dream... passionate, knowledgeable, mindblowing" (Asian Art Museum, SF); and as "invoking the infinite" (SFMOMA).

In 2008, Gautam was commissioned for four performances of what was then called 'New Directions in Indian Classical Music' - a project to render Carnatic music as free collective improvisation. Now, nearly *twenty* years later - the three performances of this residency continue this interesting work, together with a few trusted collaborators. A fascinating and fruitful approach towards a revered inheritance - engaging with it somewhere along the axis of 'pure' music vs. what is 'programmed' (the latter term, although right at home in our 'information age', was in fact coined two centuries ago by the piano virtuoso Franz Liszt...) - Gautam is under no illusion that *any* music requires 'freeing' or 'purifying' - least of all by *him*. Nothing doing.

Rather, these terms gesture at rich traditions *of their own* in music-making - and also at an open-ended, open-minded *spirit* that these performances will, as always, attempt to invoke and embody. One is reminded of the different sorts of 'samadhi': the one 'sa-bija' (with-seed), and the other 'nir-bija' (without...). We're going 'without' here... by going 'within'...

Rajna Swaminathan is an acclaimed mrudangam artist, composer, and scholar. One of only a few women who play the mrudangam professionally, over the years she has joined Gautam for numerous bay area performances - including at the Freight and Salvage (Berkeley) and at the ODC Theater (SF). Her wide affinities and deep collaborative work in New York's jazz and creative music scene have earned her - and her groundbreaking ensembles - being described as “unlike any other on the scene” (New York Times). Since 2021, she has been Assistant Professor of Music (Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology) at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts - and she holds a PhD in Music (Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry) from Harvard University.

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan Residency Day 3

COLLABORATORS

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan Residency Day 3

COLLABORATORS