Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 202; Kanniks Kannikeswaran interview, part 2 of 7

PAUSE

So, in 1994 we gave our first choral performance of about 20 singers, umm, singing various Indian Raga’s like, uh, Yamin Basent (SP?) and so forth and, uh, it was at the University of Cincinnati. We had two show back to back and with an audience of about 1,100 combined and, uh, a standing ovation at the end. It was like celebrating at that point in time, we were all much younger, voices are much fresher. So that was the beginning, what started in 1992 went on... that was the first milestone and made a performance in 1994. Then, I collaborated with a good friend of mine, Kathy Roma, Dr. Kathryn Roma who is choral celebrity in Cincinnati and much beyond and she listened to what we had performed in 1994 and was au-struck by the fact that all of this had been learned by the ear without a music... written music score. So, the polyphony had been learned by the choir just through listening. And, she invited me to collaborate with her in 1996 and I wrote a production called, The Blue Jewel, which is what the world... what the earth looks like when you look at it from space. And, in this we enrolled the same _____ Unitarian Church Choir as well. So, the combined result was an Indian choir singing along with the western choir, along with a recorded accompaniment and some live accompaniment, choreographed to dances from around the world. And, again, we had a powerful standing ovations a couple of times, umm, which is a huge success as well. So, one thing led to another and so I have been working with the Indian community in Cincinnati and choir performances every since 1992. And, uh, uh, living in Mason, many of the choir members also live in Mason, so it’s been convenient to get together and rehearse and put in all the extra work that it took, uh, for us to compete in the World Choir Games on par with many distinguished choirs that came from around the world.

Q: Can you go ahead and expand on what the Raga system is?

KANNIKS: Yes, Indian music is very different from western music. There’s no concept of functional harmony. But, what is it that distinguishes Indian music from other forms of music? It is the stress on melody in a very different way. It is, uh, based on the concept of Raga. A Raga deals with moods and expressions and, uh, uh, also, and from a definition standpoint it deals with the relationship between the various notes that are played and, uh, the root note which is called a tonic which as drum that you hear anytime you tune into a concert of Indian classical music. There are many Raga’s there’s technically a finite number of Raga’s umm, as possible but more than a couple of hundred Raga’s that are involved in this, uh, Raga is unique to regions, there are Raga’s that are unique to seasons, there are Raga’s that are assigned to particular days and particular times of the day. For instance it’s not unusual to listen to monsoon Raga’s during a monsoon season. And, if you had a concert of, uh, if you had a concert in the morning, you would listen to morning Raga’s and if you had a concert in the evening, particularly north India, you would listen to only to the evening Raga’s. So, the Raga is a, umm, is tied to expressions, moods and, uh, uh, on another grammatical front it’s defined by so many different rules which gives it a unique flavor plus Indian music is also defined by quarter tones and the glides between notes. Umm, it’s not, it doesn’t... Indian music doesn’t look, uh, it looks as sound as a continuum and not necessarily as twelve district steps that jump from one to another.

Q: Can you say that again?

KANNIKS: Umm, one of the... there’s many fundamental differences between Indian and western music for Indian music does not use written notation and Indian music always relies on the use of what’s called a tonic which you hear in the form of a drum when you tune into a concert of Indian music and more important than that, it, uh, it looks at sound as a continuum. Umm, and not as a series of 12 distinct steps where you have to jump from one to another, you can glide between the steps.

Q: Tell us a bit about your experience at the World Choir Games. What are the World Choir Games and how did you come to participate in them?

KANNIKS: Yep, the World Choir Games is the largest choral competition held in the world. Umm, it’s the brain child of an organization called Inter-culture that’s based in Germany. See, back in 2009 the vice president for human affairs, for student affairs at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Mitch Livingston, called me and said, hey, Kanniks, do you know about the fact that the biggest choral event is coming to Cincinnati? And, I said, no. And, then he said, he’d mail me some information and that’s when if first came to know that this... that something like this existed. Then in 2010, I got an invitation from Dr. Kathryn Romo to participate in the World Choir Games in China in, uh, July 2010. So, my daughter... daughter Vidita and I were selected to be members of a choir called Sing- Cincinnati which would go and sing the gospel and spiritual categories in China at the World Choir Games. And, what I saw there was mind blowing. This is a large huge collection of singers from all around the world that had come there just to sing and compete in singing and this is a friendly competition. This is not like a sports, uh, it’s not like the... the World Choir Games are referred to as the Olympics of choir music, but it’s not a competition where you get placed as a first and the second and the third. It’s very different, the placing system is very different, umm, it’s a very friendly event where you... it’s designed to bring the best in you. It’s designed to bring the best, uh, uh, in the spiritual singing together, in fact, the motto is, singing together builds nations together. So, when I went to the World Choir Games in China and I knew that... fully knowing that the next games are going to be held in Cincinnati, the thought that is running through my head was uh, our... the greater Cincinnati Indian Community Choir should participate in the World Choir Games. So, umm, we worked towards that and, uh, the.. it was a new experience for our choir singers to be part of such an international, such a global setting. Umm, again in Cincinnati it was even more mind blowing, the organization was impeccable, the spirit of volunteerism, umm, that was just mind blowing. You see...

Q: What was your experience participating in the games?

KANNIKS: We, umm, we had three performances at the World Choir Games. One was a French concert at the Duke Energy Convention Center. The other was, uh, the second was a competition in the category of, uh, the music of the religions which we performed at the Masonic Center. That’s a beautiful auditorium and we performed there for the first time, and we were the first choir to go on stage in the category in the... but we participated in the champions division, so we, we, umm, so they have two divisions in the World Choir Games, one is the Open Competitions, the other is a Champions Division. So, we got into the Champions category in the music of the religions. Umm, and we rehearsed there itself and, uh, uh,...

Q: Describe the energy, how you felt performing, or how the choir felt performing.

KANNIKS: First of all, we saw a number of choirs perform and, uh, we saw the best coming out of people... we saw the best coming out of the audiences, we just, which was so encouraging. And, when our time came to perform we gave our best and, uh, the audience cheered us wildly but then that is not the end of it. We performed at the Aeronaut Center on Friday the 13th as part of the scenic folklore competition and we mediated before in there. When we went into the... went on stage, the audience greeted us with thunderous response and in the scenic folklore we also had, uh, supplemented a performance with choreography with dances from the Cincinnati area and some invited dances from outside. And, at the end of the... the 15 minutes just went by, just wild, we don’t even know how the time flew, just like living totally in the present moment. Everybody doing their best literally, uh, radiating energy on stage and some of it must have transferred to the audience because at the end of the 15 minutes there was a wild standing ovation that just never seemed to stop. Time just seemed to stop for us on stage and then, that’s when we looked at the audience, there was a full packed Aeronaut Center with more than 2,600 people standing there cheering us, uh, celebrating that fact that we had performed there. So, that was what mattered, it didn’t matter whether we would go on to win, uh, uh, medals at the World Choir Games but in reality we ended up winning 2 silver medals, one in the sacred music category... sorry, in the music of the religions category, the other in the scenic folklore category which we just came to know that Friday night and on Saturday morning we were very grateful for the opportunity to perform in this kind of a setting. We’re grateful for the fact that the games came to Cincinnati and we were grateful to have made a mark in there, umm, having been adjudicated by distinguished judges from around the world and for the fact that we placed very well in the competitions.

Q: Tell us about receiving it and how that made you feel.