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Vijay Gupta, Suzana Bartal - Jhula Jhule

from Breathe: Music of Reena Esmail by Vijay Gupta, Suzana Bartal, Peter Myers

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Jhula Jhule
(notes by the composer)

When I began writing this piece, which was specifically commissioned to be based upon Indian folksong, I cast a wide net for source material. Yet, in the end, the folksongs I chose to use came to me in the most common way folk music is transmitted: through the generations of my own family.

This piece uses two folk melodies. The first is a song called “Ankhon vina andharon re”, which I found on a recording my maternal grandfather made long before I was born. As a Goan living in Mombasa, Kenya, he loved to sing, and made recordings of himself singing in the many languages – English, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Portuguese, Swahili and others. While I never met him, I know him intimately through the songs he sang. The title of this song means “Without eyes, it remains dark.”

The other song came to me from my paternal grandmother. My father’s parents moved to the US the year before I was born, and lived with us for most of my childhood. I grew up speaking to my grandmother only in Gujarati, a language that I spoke to no one else until she died. My grandmother barely sang, but she did sing me a lullaby when I was young. The words “jhula jhule” describe the motion of a swing, gently rocking back and forth.

I spent most of my childhood unconsciously trying to separate my home life from my outside life. I realized very early on that there was no real resonance for my Indian culture in my American surroundings. As a composer, I’ve often quoted from pieces I love (mostly by other western composers, and more recently from Hindustani bandishes). But this was the first time I was able to bring my own family’s story into my music -- and to finally explore that place of resonance.

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from Breathe: Music of Reena Esmail, released April 30, 2021

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Vijay Gupta Los Angeles, California

Vijay Gupta is a violinist, speaker and citizen-artist dedicated to creating spaces of wholeness through music. He is the founder of Street Symphony, a community of musicians dedicated to engaging people in reentry and recovery living in LA's Skid Row. Vijay Gupta is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. ... more

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