Internationally acclaimed musicians, celloist Jan Müller-Szeraws, Instructor in Cello, tabla player Amit Kavthekar and Carnatic soprano Deepti Narvaratna, presented an exotic repertoire featuring both Indian-based and western-based music last Friday in Cochran Chapel.
The concert included two new pieces by composer Shirish Korde, as well as cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. Although Korde’s compositions find their roots in Indian classical music while Bach’s work is known to emanate classical Western music, the trio was able to coordinate and integrate the two distinct styles of music to form a fluid program.
“In a certain way, I find that [Korde’s and Bach’s compositions] complement each other quite well. They have several things in common. The most important one is how they actually relate to silence. The Bach comes out of silence and fills the place, and the Indian music does the same, but in very different ways,” said Müller-Szeraws.
Müller-Szeraws began with an interpretation of Bach’s “First Cello Suite in C Minor.” Müller-Szeraws’s light and heavy bow strokes correlated with the rises and drops of the music.
Renowned for being complex, Bach’s music provided a comforting feel for the audience as Müller-Szeraws skillfully played the cello chords despite having to cross many strings quickly.
Müller-Szeraws’s and Narvaratna’s rendering of Korde’s “Anusvara–5th Prism,” a work for the cello and Carnatic soprano, was marked with a freakish mood created by the soprano’s trills.
“I was just stunned by the pleasantness of the voice of the Carnatic soprano. Her voice sounded authentic. Her singing did not have a lot of decorations, as does the Western soprano. It was beautiful, but in a new way,” said Gabriel Parlin ’14.
In Korde’s “Lalit,” Narvaratna’s steady beat of the tabla, a traditional Indian percussion instrument, intensified Müller-Szeraws’s lyrical melody on the cello.
Kavthekar, Müller-Szeraws and Narvaratna returned to Bach with their concluding piece, “Cello Suite in G Major.”
David Shin ’14 said, “I was pleasantly surprised. I never knew that the cello, which is usually a Western classical instrument, could sound so beautiful in the context of Eastern music. The cello blended very well, especially with the Carnatic soprano. A lot of the sounds and harmonies were new to me, yet I found them very pleasant to listen to.”
