Mangal

Rajna Swaminathan’s Mangal is a nascent project that will see its premiere at The Walden School. The project features Rajna on percussion, along with longtime collaborators María Grand (tenor sax) and Anjna Swaminathan (violin). Mangal is a homonym with unique meanings in English and Sanskrit: the English ‘mangal’ refers to an assemblage of mangrove trees, whose roots are entangled together in a chaotic web, making it difficult to individuate one tree from the interconnected collective; the Sanskrit ‘mangal’ is an epithet for anything that is harmonious or auspiciously timed. The hybrid imagery of chaotic but serendipitous multiplicity in ‘mangal’ serves as a poetic impetus for the improvisational flights and experimental textures of this ensemble.