There’s a reason that composer Shruthi Rajasekar calls so many Minnesota-based artists “auntie” and “uncle.”
“I feel that this community raised me,” she said from her home in Plymouth. “Not only the South Asian community, but all of these Minnesota artists in and outside of the South Asian community. I remember very distinctly that a lot of them would treat me as if I had something worth paying attention to whenever I was saying something.”
And now much of the classical music world is listening to what the 27-year-old composer has to say. A graduate of Wayzata High School, Princeton University and England’s Royal Northern College of Music, Rajasekar is particularly renowned for her choral music. She’s been hailed as a talent to watch by two English publications, the Guardian and BBC Music, and has received a United Nations Global Women in Music award.
This Sunday afternoon at St. Paul’s Ordway Concert Hall, she’ll host a family gathering for that plethora of “aunties” and “uncles.” Rajasekar was asked to curate a concert for the Schubert Club Mix concert series, and she decided to make it a celebration of Minnesota’s vibrant South Asian artistic community and the many musicians who have guided her along the way.
“Shruthi’s musical world straddles Western and South Asian cultures,” said Barry Kempton, the Schubert Club’s artistic and executive director. “Being exposed to her unique perspective was a major factor in asking her to curate a program.”
Rajasekar attributes that perspective to growing up in a house full of music. Her mother, Nirmala Rajasekar, is an internationally renowned virtuoso of the veena, a cousin of the guitar and sitar played in the Carnatic music of South India.
“I’d be listening while my mother was teaching,” Shruthi said. “But, from the start, I was exposed to other genres through Mom’s work. Particularly when she first came here [in the early to mid-’90s], we didn’t have a huge Indian classical music scene in town. So Mom’s way of keeping the tradition alive, but also finding vitality in what she was doing, was to collaborate with all kinds of musicians here. And then she did the same thing with the theater makers, the dancers and other artists in town.”
“I have known Shruthi since she was 8 months old,” said Ranee Ramaswamy, founding artistic director of Ragamala Dance Company. “Nirmala was an artistic collaborator with Ragamala in our early years. From the baby Shruthi to composer Shruthi happened very quickly.”