Rajna Swaminathan - Part 9

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 173: Rajna Swaminathan - Part 9

In this week’s episode, we talk to Rajna Swaminathan about how she finds the most inspiration from her collaborators and their approaches to music. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Rajna Swaminathan, check her out here: https://www.rajnaswaminathan.com/. This episode was originally recorded in January 2024.

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.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/17692025

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes

Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Yoyo Hung-Yu Lin

Chapters

• 0:22 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Rajna Swaminathan, who we spoke to in January 2024.
• 0:30 Is there a piece of music or a composer that you find particularly inspiring now or in the past? I mean, you know, any way you want to take that question...
• 3:14 Can you share any projects you're working on, currently or recent projects? You mentioned a few, but talk about what you're up to, if you'd like.

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Rajna Swaminathan, who we spoke to in January 2024. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

Nanette McGuinness  00:30

Is there a piece of music or a composer that you find particularly inspiring now or in the past? I mean, you know, any way you want to take that question... 

Rajna Swaminathan  00:41

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to point to just one, but what my way of answering this question is always the people that I work with are always the most inspiring to me. And, you know, over time that has been a growing group of people, which is really wonderful. And I can name some, I'll name a few names. You know, obviously Ghanavya who's, who's, one of my closest friends and collaborators was a vocalist and composer. I work with her a lot on productions, and has been a huge influence on me, Anjna, as I had mentioned, the pianist Utsav Lal; Amir ElSaffar, The trumpet player and composer; Vijay Iyer, who I had already mentioned; Miles Okazaki, who's a guitarist and composer and visual artist and polymath. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  01:37

[laughs] 

Rajna Swaminathan  01:40

Let's see...Darian Donovan Thomas I've been working with recently. 

Nanette McGuinness  01:44

He's great, yeah.

Rajna Swaminathan  01:45

Yeah, yeah. Really wonderful. inti figgis-vizueta is a good friend, and I really admire her approach to composition, which involves improvisation. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  01:58

We love her music too. We've done both of those composers.

Rajna Swaminathan  02:01

Yeah, I figured I would just name them, look into them. Recently worked with Kalia Vandever, the trombone player. In the past, I've worked with Stephan Crump who's a bassist, just, you know, wonderful artist on that instrument, and see Hannah Marks, who's a bassist as well that I've been working with recently. Let's see...yeah, there's so many people. Rafiq Bhatia is a guitarist and composer and producer. Yeah, I can sort of keep going...

Nanette McGuinness  02:24

[laughs]

Rajna Swaminathan  02:24

...and maybe I mail you a list at this point... [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  02:34

That's fine! This is your question to answer, as you wish. That's the whole point of this.

Rajna Swaminathan  02:49

Yeah. Everybody that I work with and play with is a huge inspiration to me. You know, my dad, [laughs] my mom, so many people that I love and you know, have just just been inspired by.

Nanette McGuinness  03:12

That's great. Yeah, that's great. Can you share any projects you're working on, currently or recent projects? You mentioned a few, but talk about what you're up to, if you'd like.

Rajna Swaminathan  03:23

Yeah, sure. So I mean, what I'm up to, in the broader sense, is...

Nanette McGuinness  03:30

[laughs]

Rajna Swaminathan  03:31

I'm a professor at UC Irvine in a program called integrated composition, improvisation, and technology, so a lot of my time goes towards that and to mentoring these PhD students, who are also a huge inspiration for me...

Nanette McGuinness  03:46

Right. 

Rajna Swaminathan  03:46

...just seeing the kinds of work that they do and the kinds of research that they do. But I've been working on a new trio project with Ghanavya and with Utsav Lal, and sort of a collective trio. We've been calling ourselves Vagabonds, although I think we're looking for a new name... [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  04:05

[laughs] something that maybe has more positive connotations too.

Rajna Swaminathan  04:09

I think we don't mind being Vagabonds, but, you know, it's been wonderful. I think, you know, years ago, before I started RAJAS, I think my goal was to really work with other musicians of a kind of South Asian background, do more kind of open forms of music making with them. And at that time, I think we were all young, and I think we weren't quite there yet. So I had started RAJAS but through that process, I met Ghanavya and Utsav, and there's just a really beautiful working relationship there, and like a shared language and a shared curiosity. So we decided to start putting our minds together and hearts together to create some trio music, and I'm hoping to record it soon, but we've been taking our time with it. We just, you know, had a little bit of a residency back in November, and, you know, try to have a conversation from time to time, just over zoom and and talk about the things that inspire us and the kinds of music that we're listening to. And it's been a wonderful way to work also, to just say, "Okay, you know what? There's no rush. We're just going to talk and lean into our shared human experiences and and see what comes out of that," rather than, as I said, rather than forcing something short timeline, but really allow something to brew and kind of come forth in an organic way. So that's one of the things I'm I'm excited about. Let's see. I'm going to be working with Ghanavya later this year on some some of her work, particularly an album called Let's Go Out and Play that has been kind of a long time in the in the making, and I'm excited for that. I've been doing some work with the dancer and choreographer, Mythili Prakash, that's really invited me to stretch outside of just my role as a musician, and she's involved us in some movement, which is really very cool. And, yeah, so it's just a small taste of kind of what's coming up this year. But, but, yeah, I'm kind of always looking for these different kinds of experiences that I can that I can grow from and learn from.

Nanette McGuinness  06:38

That's great. Yeah, it's great. I find trios, especially going back to your your group, that there's something very exciting about working in three, I guess, you know, both personality wise and in terms of timbre and variety, but similarity, it's just a very nice number three. It's very stable and fluid.

Rajna Swaminathan  07:02

Yeah, it is. It's a nice kind of balance.

Nanette McGuinness  07:07

Yeah, yeah. So good. Well, thank you very much for doing this. This was fascinating and very enjoyable.

Rajna Swaminathan  07:16

Thank you. Thank you.

Nanette McGuinness  07:17

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Rajna Swaminathan, 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, or 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 design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week, "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]