Deepti Navaratna

Deepti Navaratna has an expressive voice and she unfolds it on the opening track “Anuswara.” Her new recording Ka is a mood-inducing fuse of Carnatic music touched with Western classical music, just right for twilight listening, or any time of day that her renditions of various ragas evoke. Navaratna blends her classically trained voice with subtle instrumentation on the five songs that inhabit the recording. This mix of Western and Carnatic (South Indian) classical music is intriguing and even though the two styles are vastly different, her music flows as if the blend was a natural occurrence. Western classical music is written down and performed according to and following the composition, while Carnatic music opens the possibilities for individual interpretation. It’s a blend of harmony and melody where improvisation converses with more formal guidelines. Navaratna pulls this off with her fine vocals. Many instrumentalists have blended western and Indian classical before, Navaratna is one of the first vocalists to do so. The compositions include “Anuswara” (with a lilting violin weaving in and out of the composition and conversing with her voice). Other compositions include the spiritual tome “Durga Shloka,” the title track “Ka,” as well as “Love Song,” and “Pilu.” She explores many ragas in and co-composer Sirish Korde adds just the right amount of musical spice. She has immersed herself in musical training and her credentials unfold her training and discipline, which include being an empanelled artist of All India Radio since 2000 and featured as a Youth Ambassador for the Arts at the prestigious National Youth Festival hosted by the Government of India in 1999 and 2001. After moving to the United States, she has received several distinctions as a traditional musician. Not content to sing solely in traditional Carnatic, she has also collaborated with Persian and Turkish traditional musicians, with jazz composers, and with eclectic musicians like pianist Ran Blake. She holds a doctorate degree in Neuroscience and is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. In bridging the duality of Western and Carnatic music she states, “I love the contemplative yet adventurous edge to such music-making. In exploring new frontiers for contemporary classical music, I am able to use my traditional wisdom more consciously and in a different yet purposeful quest for beauty through sound.”

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