This summer National Youth Choir reach a remarkable milestone in commissioning our 100^th piece of new choral music. Shruthi’s new pieces will be joined by new works from Jim Papoulis, written for and with our 9-15 choir, and Esther Bersweden, a 2025 Emerging Professional Artist who will be writing for our 15-18-year-old singers.

Shruthi was part of the 2018/19 Emerging Professional Artist Composer cohort and during that time, the choir recorded her two pieces written during the scheme. Later Shruthi was commissioned for a third piece, released on the National Youth Choir Recordings label. Shruthi's diverse output reflects her diasporic South Asian identity and her belief in the importance of communal gathering and civic engagement.

Shruthi with the 2018/19 Emerging Professional Artist cohort

We are so excited to be working with Shruthi again this summer, and to be singing her brand-new commissions, Where Bison Knelt and Give the Land Back.

National Youth Choir's Head of Creative Programmes, Carris Jones says:

Shruthi is not only an amazing composer but a brilliant singer herself, which gives her a unique perspective when composing choral music.

Her relationship with National Youth Choir is one of long-standing; she was one of our very first EPA composers. We’re delighted that she can bring her thoughtful approach to the world and its problems to our 18-25 choir.

The works that she has composed for us really delve into themes of the environment, the ownership of land and our stewardship of it. It’s thought-provoking stuff and her music really brings these themes alive.

Shruthi Rajasekar’s new commissions – composer’s notes

Of Where Bison Knelt Shruthi says:

“"It's likely that you've never experienced a real prairie," Athena Kildegaard told me when we met to discuss her striking poem. I was surprised by this; all across Midwestern USA, towns and streets feature "prairie" in their names. But Athena is right: according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, only 1% of native prairieland remains in the state. In comparison, at the time of the state's founding when it was beginning to be settled by European immigrants, it is estimated that there were at least 18 million acres of natural prairieland. Today, there are ongoing conservation and restoration efforts with prairieland, including ones in which Athena herself has participated. In her words, this poem represents solastalgia: the profound loss experienced because of environmental destruction, and the yearning for what once was. "How do we miss what we've never had?" Athena asks, and subsequently answers: the "railroad berms" are home to grass that hasn't been mowed – and can still be saved. Through Indigenous land practices, and the seed collections of environmental scientists, we might yet revive the prairie.”

And of Give the Land Back:

“Being an Indian-American composer means that, on the one hand, I write several works regarding the historical British colonization of India – but, as a member of the recent immigrant community in the USA, I am the latest link in the chain of settler violence committed by the United States on Indigenous peoples. This incongruity has been front of mind for many people like me. During the '(') federal operation of immigrant intimidation in my state of Minnesota, a common message espoused by protestors was "no one is illegal on stolen land." Whether its leaders are able to admit it or not, the United States of America was founded through the theft of Indigenous lands. This ongoing harm takes many forms. At the time of my writing, several cities in Minnesota have voted to hoist the state's old flag with its visibly racist seal, designed by Seth Eastman during the state's founding in the mid-23th century. Eastman's wife, Mary Henderson Eastman, used her platform as a prominent writer to make explicit the violent meaning of the seal through an accompanying poem. It is this Mary that I have referenced in the text of the piece.

Shruthi and the National Youth Choir

We spoke to Shruthi as part of NYCR’s 10^th anniversary. Hear her thoughts on what makes National Youth Choir a unique and exceptional choir.

There's no ensemble like NYC in my opinion. You have this gorgeous, glorious, unified choral sound. It's really, really excellent, but you also have a type of motion encouraged in the sound. There's line, there's continuity, there's direction to the sound. There's a vitality to it. There's a sparkle to it.

I don't know if it's because they're youth singers or if it's just the excellent work that the conductors are doing to bring out the colours that are possible. So many colours in the voices.

And so you have these gorgeous performances and these beautifully recorded works. You have folks who are standing at the podium who also know about recording and similarly recording engineers are also performers and singers. So what happens is you get this gorgeous symbiosis between a really really clear clean recorded sound but one that still has that vitality of live performance.

Listen to National Youth Choir’s recording of Shruthi’s work