What an enormous privilege to work with Supriya, one of our three women composers for 2021!
Supriya is a charismatic Indian Carnatic Singer and we are very lucky to be working with her on this project. This first session was fun, gentle, intriguing, energising, such a wonderful learning experience!
The day started like all Zoom calls: 'Can you hear me?', 'Can you see me?' but quickly developed into a raga improvisation workshop. Surpiya laid out her idea for the structure of the piece: 3 part improvisation between us and 1 part written score (Supriya and Animo will work this out between us- somehow!). The two ragas we are using for this composition are Sri and Madhukauns.
This was the first time I was asked to improvise "live" and I loved it. I had already spent some time improvising on my own before the session but this session gave me more incentives and ideas to go on. There's still work to do to allow for more ideas to come through; first I will have to memorise the ragas so I know exactly which notes to play without thinking. The other, funnier, issue is that because I have two hands to improvise with and I feel I ought to use them both... we'll see what happens in Phase 2!
Sarah and Supriya decided that the Alto flute is the best candidate for the sound Supriya was after and from that moment on, everything seemed to fall into place.
I have condensed 90 minutes to about 10 and I hope you feel like spending some time watching as music unfolds from simple notes and cells into bigger ideas with a pulse and rhythm; much like Jazz. Supriya's voice is a miracle! Gentle and embracing.
I am intrigued and fascinated and very proud of our work with our composers this year. Thank you for letting us occupy a slice of your world Caitlin, Jovana and Supriya.
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Thanks for watching!
