Juhi Bansal - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 34: Juhi Bansal (part 1)

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In this week’s episode, we talk to Juhi Bansal about how growing up in Hong Kong and being around many different genres and cultures have influenced her musical journey. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Juhi Bansal, check her out here: juhibansal.com. Parts of this episode originally premiered on Feb 2021, found on Youtube, click here.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Roziht Edwards and Merve Tokar

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness: 0:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble For These Times. In this week's episode, we're joined by Juhi Bansal, who we spoke to in February 2022 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. You have a rich, fascinating background, in your own words, you're an Indian, who grew up in Hong ong and now lives in Southern California. What was it like moving to and growing up in Hong Kong? How have the musical landscapes of India and Hong Kong influenced your own musical landscape?

Juhi Bansal: 0:53

You know, one of the things I always think about as a composer is that everything we're surrounded by in terms of music, and sound somehow feeds into kind of this, you know, tapestry of ideas that you play with. So for me, when I was, you know, I remember from when we still lived in India, my mom used to work for Indian classical radio. So, in the mornings, instead of having an alarm clock go off, you'd wake up, because your parents are just cranking Indian classical music through this is, you know, like all the tape decks. And then, you know, so being surrounded by Indian classical music was a big part of what I remember from my actual youngest part of my childhood. And then, when I was seven, my family moved to Hong Kong. And that was, you know, just culturally a very interesting experience, because I felt so out of place, you know, there is kind of a little Indian community in Hong Kong, but not a huge one. And the cultures are so foreign in some ways. And, you know, Hong Kong is such an interesting place also, because of the kind of the colonial background. So for me, it was like, I used to go to an international school that was a British school, but you're surrounded by Chinese culture in day to day life and you know, Cantonese and Mandarin, as far as the language is that you're hearing. Music was so interesting, because at home, we listened to Indian classical music, public transit, you'd listen to whatever playing in it was a lot of Cantopop, like sometimes really traditional Chinese folk music and things like that as well. And then at school would be inquire and you're doing kind of Western classical music. And I was taking piano lessons, and kind of really being surrounded by so many very different styles of music. And, you know, obviously, coming from the different cultures, but also one of the things that was interesting about it is really this kind of sense of, like, serious music versus not serious music. I don't know if I love those words, but kind of, you know, thinking about how you're surrounded by the popular music. And this is popular Chinese music, popular Indian music, popular western music, and also kind of the more, I still, there needs to be a better word that really describes everything that goes into it, that art music for lack of another one, where you're looking at kind of the stage music and the concert music and the performance music from, again, each of these different cultures. So, you know, my musical background growing up, I think, was just to do with being exposed to a lot of different things. And like learning and pulling sounds and ideas from a lot of different things. And one of my favorite things about it was learning how to appreciate all these different styles of music. That's something I still kind of try to carry in all my work today. And even when I'm working with students, this idea that you can appreciate a lot of very different things and learn something from everything that you've listened to.

Nanette McGuinness: 3:57

You've said your works draw upon elements as disparate as Hindustani music, the spectralist, progressive metal, how have they influenced your compositions?

Juhi Bansal: 4:08

Well, you know, I think it kind of ties back to what we were just talking about this idea of like drawing influences from all sorts of different types of music. So the specific ones that you mentioned, so Indian classical music, for example, for me, one of the things that is just spectacular about that as a style is Melody and ornamentation. There's just like this incredible fluidity to how notes are sung and how notes are played. And, you know, that we just is not at all a part of the EDM of what we do in Western classical music. So that's something that very, I mean, it started subconsciously when I've started first started working as a composer and now it's more and more conscious. I think, that kind of melodic ornamentation is something I try to draw upon. Um, you mentioned phonetic, what else you said spectralis. I think you mentioned that so Another completely different style. But to me, they are one of the things that has always fascinated me is this idea of like constructing sound, not just taking sound out of an instrument or sound out of a voice is kind of a, you know, as a given that being able to manipulate sound and layer sounds and shapes sounds to create something that's more multi dimensional, kind of, you know, think thinking about a suppose sounds in a way that's analogous to what you would do electronically, you can take a sound and reinforce these frequencies and kind of weaken these frequencies and kind of create something that's more multi dimensional than just the sound would have been unprocessed or unaffected. And kind of, you know, leaning into that even when I'm reading acoustic music is a way to really get your hands dirty and manipulate the sound more than you can do otherwise. I will give the disclaimer, I don't know if this is the definitive sort of illustration of what it is, but what I understand spectralis to be our composers and musicians who play quite literally with the spectra of sound. So analyzing sounds looking at the frequencies that make up different sounds. And then often using electronic media or electronic means to manipulate them in some way. And progressive metal. Okay, um, I think that's to do with pacing, mostly, and kind of this idea of even just like ambience and sound, you think about traditionally when we think about Western classical music. And, you know, one of the things that's exciting about writing music now and performing music now is that everybody has their own version of what that means and how you build music and what what music should even be still, there's kind of, you know, in the back burner, sort of this idea that it needs to be music that has some harmonic movement and some certain kinds of changes in progression. And one of the things I've always loved about listening to progressive metal, for example, is that it is the basic paradigm is different. It's about it can often be about ambient sounds, it's not that there's not harmonic change, but often the pieces are not about harmonic change. It can be about tambor it can be about layering the pacing is very different. So kind of all these different ways to kind of approach, how things happen and what things happen in a piece that are very different from the paradigm I think we're going to start out with in terms of Western classical music.

Nanette McGuinness: 7:30

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Dawn Norfleet for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT Our concert season online and in the Bay Area where to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. "For Good Measure" is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and designed by Brennan Stokes. With special thanks to audio engineer extraordinaire Stephanie Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]