An interview with Utsav Lal, the Composer and pianist for “Invoking the River”
“Indian pianist Utsav Lal has been making waves in the global music circuit as a man of promising ventures for over a decade now. Popularly dubbed the Raga Pianist, what sets him apart from the rest of the world’s pianists is his constant endeavour to make the piano an Indian instrument, by infusing ragas and Indian compositions on the Western instrument.” The Hindu
Shreya: What does “Invoking the River” mean to you?
Utsav: With this whole concert, there has definitely been an overarching sense of climate sensitivity and protest in some way. But, this is also a deep investigation into rivers and the myths associated with them, as well as personal relationships with every person involved in this show. I feel that navigating through all those elements has been a super interesting and introspective journey. Then, we tried to form as many links as we could to create this piece. It’s been super rewarding to see how many ways we can approach something that’s very important, but also, something that is too massive to comprehend.
Shreya: Thinking more about the links you mentioned earlier, have you collaborated with dancers before? What has your creative process been like?
Utsav: I’ve collaborated a little with dance before, but never to this extent, where we’ve made an entire concert together. We’ve done smaller pieces, but this experience has definitely been super rewarding. I think one of the things that has made it especially rewarding is that it didn’t feel like I just wrote the music and gave it to the dancers. We took the long way around on every step of the process, and we really built it out together. Every single part of the program had a different approach, and all the dancers were unbelievably collaborative, starting out with a small sketch that I would send, or an essay that one of the dancers would send, or something Charlotte ji would talk about, or a little bit of choreography. It was this constant process of responding to each other. Given the locational difficulties, a lot of this happened through video clips or voice memo recordings. I was really happy we did that – it feels like everyone is in every part of this.
Shreya: Switching gears a bit, can you talk about how your journey in music began? How do you balance your background in Indian classical music as well as Jazz?
Utsav: I started off quite young, at 6 or 7, playing old Indian film compositions by ear, and then doing a bit of Western classical piano as well. Even then, I already knew I really liked this and it was something I would take seriously; I started performing when I was 11 or 12. Slowly, I started getting into more improvised forms of music, which got me more interested in Indian classical music. Since then, I’ve done a couple Jazz degrees and some contemporary experimentation, and ended up playing with a bunch of Indie bands as well. I got really interested in finding common lines through many different genres to try and create a unique way of playing the piano. Indian classical music will always be at the forefront of what I spend the most time on, but it seemed important to focus on many other things at the same time to create a richer picture.
Shreya: Coming back to “Invoking the River,” what was the most challenging part of the entire process?
Utsav: The most challenging part has definitely been the locational difference, in terms of putting the show together. I feel like in our one weekend together in San Francisco, we got more done than two weeks of sending stuff back and forth. There was so much already floating around that when we were in the same room we could just draw on it, put it together, and make it work. Maybe if we were in the same place, it would have gone quicker, but it would have turned out completely differently. Every situation lends itself to a different way of collaborating. The same concept could have turned out completely different due to many circumstances. So I’m pretty happy with all the music and what we’ve managed to create so far.
Shreya: What are you most excited about in the lead up to a performance?
Utsav: I’m excited to perform! I’m excited for the last couple of days ahead of the performance. We have the bulk of everything done. In the process of running through everything is when we get to work on the finer details – the transitions, the last minute ideas that decorate the piece. I really enjoy that process of shaping – small things that end up making a much bigger difference.
Featuring choreography by Charlotte Moraga, music by Utsav Lal, multimedia & poetry by Alka Raghuram. Performances by Chitresh Das Dance Vanita Mundhra, Shruti Pai, Mayuka Sarukkai & Kritika Sharma and live music by Utsav Lal (piano) and Nilan Chaudhuri (tabla).
Shreya Khandewale is a Chitresh Das Youth Company alumni. She started studying Kathak at Pandit Chitresh Das’ institution as a child and continued to study for over a decade. She performed her graduating Youth Company Showcase in 2018 and is now a CDI Community Communications Contributor.