THE EAST

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Yesuvaipola Nadai – Victor Paranjoti (1906-1967)

Victor Paranjoti (1906-1967) is one of the leading composers from the country of India. He was born in the teeming city of Bombay and is well known in Indian musical culture for his creative blending of Western and Indian music. Paranjoti’s compositions deemed him the creator of a “new music.” He was also a music critic for The Times of India, a painter, and Deputy Director General of All India Radio. His Choir, the Paranjoti Academy Chorus, which he founded in 1958, remains to this day one of India`s premiere choral groups. The group motto is “International Harmony through International Music.” They have toured internationally and have received acclaim for the remarkable precision of their singing and “their brilliantly executed repertoire.”The chorus is currently under the direction of conductor Coomi Wadia. She has been with the choir for over a half century, first as a singer, then as assistant conductor and, on the death of Victor Paranjoti, was unanimously elected conductor, a position she has held for well over three decades.

Yesuvaipola Nadai is an arrangement based on the Mohana Ragam from the Carnatic School of classical Indian music. The counterpoint is maintained in complete purity throughout but is overlaid in the final eight bars by a three-part chorus of women’s voices in harmony, which gently refuses strict allegiance to the ragam without doing violence to it. Sung in the language of Tamil, a rare language spoken in southern India, Yesuvaipola Nadai is significant in that the text sheds light on Paranjoti’s own devoted commitment to Christ.

Text

Yesuvaipola nadai, yen magale!
Yesuvaipola nadai, Ilamayil
Yesuvaipola nadai.
Neesa manudar sai thosham akatrida
Pasam neeraindhu nal palanai vantha
Panniru vayathil annai than thai yudhan
Panndigaikku Yerusalem nagar vara
Sinna vayasiley desigarai ketta
Unnatha gnanathai ullandhanil enna.

Translation

Walk in the footsteps of Jesus, my daughter!
Walk in the footsteps of Jesus, In your youth,
Walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
To cleanse the unworthy of their sins,
Abounding with love, for man’s well-being He came.
At the age of twelve, escorted by parents,
At festival time, He came to Jerusalem.
At tender age, hearing priestly instruction.
Deeply He pondered over wisdom supreme.

For More Information Contact: www.facebook.com/paranjotichorus

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Chorale – Ioseb Kechaqmadze (1938-2013)

Ioseb Kechaqmadze (1938-2013), is a composer and Choral-Conductor Chair at the Tbilisi State Conservatory. He is the winner of the Shota Rustaveli and Zakaria Paliashvili State compositions contest, and is the recipient of the People’s Artist of Georgia award. He began actively composing toward the end of the 1960s. His writing continues the traditions of Niko Sulkhanishvili, a classic composer of Georgian national choral music, yet his compositions have a progressive tone that has deemed him the founder of a new choral style. The introduction of modern means of expression in choir music in Georgia and the international renown of Georgian professional music are linked with his name.

Chorale is miniature choral setting that paints a contemplative and idyllic atmospheric portrait, and in doing so creates a sense of tonal color more normally associated with stringed instruments.

For More Information Contact: www.voxmusica.net

Bishnau – Lua Hightower (b1956)

Lua Hightower (b1956), is a classically trained pianist as well as a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist (piano, tambura, frame drum, ney, oud). She is the founding member of Beloved World Music Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to performing traditional and original devotional music in the Sufi tradition of mystical Islam. LuAnne has performed jazz in various New England venues throughout the 1980s, at the 1992 Baha’I World Congress in New York City, Washington DC, at the Rumi Festival in Chapel Hill, NC and most recently at Grace Cathedral for a celebration of Huston Smith.

Bishnau is a centuries old Afghani melody, set to the mystic saint Rumi’s “Masnavi” (Mathnawi I: 1-3). The Masnavi is a collection of Sufi stories, ethical and mystical teachings. It is deeply permeated with Qur’anic meanings and references. Rumi himself called the Masnavi “the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion… and the explainer of the Qur’an.”The Sufi imagery in this poem typifies our journey from God (into flesh) to God (the return=the spiritual quest). The image of the reed field – rooted in the mud – is like us humans, all in a unified field. Though we spring from clay, we have in us this nature that strives toward the Divine. All humans experience a deep sense of separation (and hence, longing) due to the embodiment of our souls (a.k.a., the human condition; being plucked from our source and planted here in our bodies). Sufi poetry is all about being torn from our Divine source and the journey of separation and return. The return begins once we acknowledge the extent of our deep sense of separation (I want a heart torn open with longing).

Text
be-sh’naw în nay chûn shikâyat mê-kon-ad
az jodâ’îy-hâ hikâyat mê-kon-ad,
k-az nayestân tâ ma-râ be-b’rîda-and
dar nafîr-am mard-o zan nâlîda-and
sîna khwâh-am sharHa sharHa az firâq
tâ be-gôy-am sharH-é dard-é ishtiyâq

Translation

Listen to the reed [flute], how it is complaining!
It is telling about separations,
‘Ever since I was severed from the reed field, men
and women have lamented in my shrill cries.
I want a heart torn, torn from separation,
so that I may explain the pain of yearning.

For More Information Contact: www.facebook.com/LuaSufiMusic

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Raga: Iman Kalyan Matthew Grasso (b1972)

Matthew Grasso (b1972), composer, was born of Chinese and Italian ancestry. Matthew began playing guitar at the age of twelve. He attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Scott Tennant and Lawrence Ferrara. Matthew has participated in master classes held by artists including Eliot Fisk, David Russell, and the L.A. Guitar Quartet. His training has been complemented with studies of the classical music of North India at the Ali Akbar College of Music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Matthew developed a new style of playing, entitled Indian classical fusion. This combines elements of north and south Indian music. In this style he has conceived new talas (rhythmic cycles) such as 10 1/2, 27 1/2, 9 1/4, and 5 1/2. Matthew is on the faculty at Sacramento City College, The Experimental College of U.C. Davis, and teaches privately. He currently resides in Davis, California.

Raga Iman Kalyan is one the most beautiful ragas of the evening. Iman Kalyan means “blessings of the heart.” The moods are devotion, peace, the feeling of romantic love or joy, and compassion. Its rhythmic cycles (talas) are that of Jhaptal, 10-beats (2+3+2+3), and Kaharwa, 8-beats (4+4). Both Jhaptal and Kaharwa are traditional north Indian talas. This piece is sung using the traditional Hindustani syllables of Sargam.

For More Information Contact: www.matthewgrasso.com

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