Murasu is an original composition by A Carnatic Quartet. This piece is part of Rise, a production created in entirety during the months of total lockdown May - July 2020, in Chennai, India, as a reflection of the human spirit.
Watch Rise, the complete production here : dhvaniohio.org/recordings/ris...
About Rise
Rise, by A Carnatic Quartet, is a lockdown video experience of song, illustration and the spoken word. This production has been created as a reflection of the human spirit, especially in these last months.
The artistes of the Quartet, speak to you, before each piece, sharing why they’ve chosen to present that particular piece and how it connects with their personal lockdown experiences. Alongside these songs, feature quotes from several world philosophies, that explore these connections further. Each quote has also been given an original visual interpretation, by ace illustrator, musician and artiste Susha.
Rise is a 1 hr 15 min, Classical music production, that has been planned and executed from start to finish remotely. All of the music that you will listen to and all of the visuals that you will watch in this product, have been independently recorded and shot by each of the artistes in their own homes, with whatever equipment they have had access to, under complete lockdown, and then been woven together digitally to present this unique multimedia production.
Production Credits:
A Carnatic Quartet, featuring:
Shreya Devnath (Violin) Mylai M Karthikeyan (Nagaswaram), Praveen Sparsh (Mridangam) and two Thavil artistes alternatively, Adyar G Silambarasan and Gummudipoondi R Jeevanandham
Illustrations : Susha
Sound Design and Co-curation : Praveen Sparsh
Editing, Concept and Curation : Shreya Devnath
Commissioned by : Dhvani India Performing Arts Society of Central Ohio, USA
About Murasu
One of the things that has come into the news during this lockdown has been a series of incidents of violence and discrimination. George Floyd, Jayaraj and Fenix, Kumaresan, have been just some of these cases. We have been deeply disturbed by it, and wanted to create a piece to express ourselves.
The poem Murasu by Bharathiyar, had a telling effect on us here. Where he describes a cat that gives birth to a litter of kittens, all of different colours, and he asks why see them as different, superior or inferior based on colour?
This poem gave our piece its name. Murasu, is our own creation, originating from a single rhythmic pattern. Each percussionist takes his turn to play korvais of different lengths, while always returning to the motif and when he does, the quartet plays the motif together. Every time the motif recurs, we have played it in a different janya ragam (a derivative), of the raga Shankarabharanam. This leads to a kurappiu, followed by a Mohara and a Korvai, which is played in the mother raga Shankarabharanam.
What we’ve tried to do both rhytmically and melodically is to recognise and express that the source and destination is ultimately the same for us all.
This piece stands as our voice against discrimination, our stance for equality, for peaceful existence and co-existence.
2 сен 2020
