Don’t miss last week’s podcast where we profile violinists Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy and their new album, Nakshatra. It’s charting on Billboard and you can buy it here.
Edited excerpts of our conversation (with the first question intentional on this Valentine’s Day):
Arun on love: “I went to the rehearsal at the Arch in Midtown. I went up the stairs and I heard a violin already playing. She was already there. We played together and it was love at first sound. We had really great musical chemistry from day one.”
Trina on fusion: “Fusion is associated with two cultures that feel very different from each other coming together and kind of doing a mashup, right? There’s definitely a collaboration happening, but when it’s happening within you over 20 years or your lifetime, it’s not really like let’s just put these two pieces together. It’s more like: This is all of who we are. It’s constantly changing and evolving, just like we all are.”
Arun on the pandemic: “We actually made the record during the pandemic and prior to that we had been working on this music for like seven years and it was essentially ready to record. I think the pandemic pushed us to make it happen. It gave us a sense of urgency.”
Trina on the influence of Black Lives Matter: “It was also a moment that I felt so united with everybody around me, especially in our community here in Brooklyn, because everybody stood up and used their voice. It was an intense time … and then we learned that Elijah McClean had lost his life. He was 19 years old and he was in Denver, Colorado, and he was a violinist. We wanted to write a song on our violins for him, and we did, and we called it ‘For Elijah.’ We’ve actually changed the name to ‘Healer’ now, but that’s on the record as well. That definitely came out of that time.”
