MUSIC: ganavya

Description

ganavya Friday, September 19 Doors 7pm / Show 8pm All ages / Seated Member: $22 - $27 (plus fees) Advance: $25 - $30 (plus fees) Day of show: $30 - $35 (plus fees) -- “No matter the language or the content, ganavya’s voice is a thick ephemera, like smoke as dark as ink, just coming off the fire.” — New York Times Described by Wall Street Journal as “among modern music’s most compelling vocalists,” New York- born, Tamil Nadu-raised singer and transdisciplinarian ganavya has announced details of an ambitious new album, Daughter of a Temple, due November 15, 2024. Released by Nils Frahm’s label, LEITER, on vinyl and via all digital platforms, it follows her appearance at SAULT’s 2023 live debut in London where, The Guardian wrote, her “voice had a delicate emotive heft that could turn stoics into sobbing wrecks”. Her first single for the label, ‘draw something beautiful’, appeared earlier this year in July. Daughter of a Temple was recorded over a week in 2022 at the Moore’s Opera House in Houston, Texas, after ganavyahad reached out to friends and associates over the preceding months to join her for “a gathering in and for devotion”. This was to draw on studies of what she terms the musico- philosophies of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, and she’d even promised herself she’d invite anyone who brought up Turiyasangitananda’s name around her. “You really shouldn’t do that,” she chuckles. “It turns out a lot of people talk about her!”” Consequently, the album – which also brings the Hindu tradition of harikatha into the 21st century – draws upon a vast cast of contributors across multiple disciplines, among them esperanza spalding, Vijay Iyer, Shabaka Hutchings, Immanuel Wilkins, Peter Sellars, Rajna Swaminathan, Charlotte Braithwaite, Chris Sholar, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Bindhumalini Narayanswamy. Her mother even helped cook for participants. The results, an innovative and deeply moving blend of spiritual jazz and South Asian devotional music, were initially recorded and edited by Ryan Renteria, then further edited and mixed by Nils Frahm at LEITER’s Funkhaus studio in 2024. In the spirit of Elder Wayne Shorter, who once said “There is no such thing as a beginning and no such thing as an end,” the album begins in the middle of it all, with ganavyajoined by spalding for ‘A Love Chant,’ taken from an improvised concert performed on the last day of the ensemble’s ritual gathering. Iyer’s piano, quickly accompanied by Wilkins’ saxophone, then guides us through ‘Om Supreme’s uplifting ten minutes, while Elders Wayne and Carolina Shorter’s prayer (recorded at their home) lends ‘Elders Wayne and Carolina’ its name while reminding us they are always with us. ‘Journey In Satchitananda / Ghana Nila’ – edited from a 45-minute rendition performed by over thirty musicians, with dancers audible in the background – expands upon the bass line from one of Turiyasangitananda’s most recognisable prayers, and ‘Om Navah Sivaya’, the first song ganavya ever performed publicly, opens with Charles Overton on harp and features her nephew Krsna on guitar, as well as, arguably most importantly, her father and mother, among others, on guest vocals.