Shruthi Rajasekar performs her new work 'Parivaar' as part of the Schubert Club Mix

Rajasekar curated the concert series and has made it a celebration of Minnesota's vibrant South Asian artistic community and the many musicians who have guided her along the way.

By Rob Hubbard Special to the Star Tribune

February 13, 2024 — 6:30am

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."

"I wrote my first song at 5 or 6," Shruthi said. She continued to compose through elementary and middle school.

She says it was mostly a lack of child care that brought her to her mother's rehearsals with groups like St. Paul-based new music ensemble Zeitgeist. Learning of Shruthi's interest in composition, Zeitgeist percussionist Heather Barringer encouraged her to enter a piece in the youth division of the group's annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. She won in 2009 at age 12.

"She was very sweet and humble, yet she still had very clear ideas about what she wanted and how she wanted it to be played," Zeitgeist reed player Pat O'Keefe said. "I remember thinking at the time, 'Wow, she's just starting out as a composer, but she's already thinking in deep and sophisticated ways about her creative work.'"

For this concert, O'Keefe will be performing with Maithree, a group led by Nirmala Rajasekar, while artist Ta-coumba T. Aiken paints to the music. Then Ramaswamy and the dancers of Ragamala will be among more than 100 artists seen in a cinematic celebration of Minnesota's South Asian artistic community while Shruthi and a collection of musicians premiere her latest composition, "Parivaar," Hindi for "family."