Beyond Borders - Indian Kuchipudi Dance & Western Classical Music

Reena Esmail: When The Violin

Originally composed in 2020 for choir and cello, Reena Esmail's "When The Violin" is a setting of a poem on forgiveness by the Sufi mystic Hafiz. "When the violin/can forgive the past/it starts singing." The work is set in the Hindustani raga Charukeshi, which evokes grief, balancing between the pull between major and minor.

JS Bach: D minor Partita

Composed in 1720, Bach's Sonatas and Partitas are the "Himalayas" of music for the unaccompanied violin. In 1720, Bach's beloved wife Maria Barbara suddenly passed away, and the works - although not formally dedicated to her - are often thought of as a journey through grief. The D minor Partita sets a series of baroque dances: the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, choreographed here by Yamini Kalluri.

Maurice Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Cello

An essential and economical work of pure genius, dedicated to Ravel's friend and the great French composer Claude Debussy, this four movement of Sonata dances a pantomime between major and minor tonalities, also evoking elements of Hungarian music. Ravel, who Stravinsky called a "Swiss watch-maker of a composer", was half-Swiss, half Basque - integrating elements of folk elements from French and Spanish music with contrapuntal mastery.