From Hildegard’s melodies to Vedic hymns, this Australian musician duo strike an esoteric chord
Australian musicians Kim Cunio and Heather Lee at the Auroville Language Lab.
| Photo Credit: M. Dinesh Varma
A fervid fascination for ancient devotional paeans of Eastern and Western cultures has led Australian musicians Kim Cunio and Heather Lee to explore esoteric realms, from medieval era mysticism and liturgical chants to Vedic hymns.
For about three decades, they have researched and recreated sacred music, ranging from the melismatic musical pieces of 11th century Benedictine abbess-composer Hildegard of Bingen and Gregorian chants to Vedic mantras and even Lata Mangeshkar’s famed invocation of the Bhagavad Gita.
The duo were recently at the Auroville Language Lab for a performance that juxtaposed Gregorian chants (standardised by Pope Gregory) and hymns composed by St. Hildegard.
Kim, who heads the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, after a tenure helming the School of Music at the Australian National University, rendered Gregorian chants in baritone while Lee, one of Australia’s finest opera singers, expressed Hildegard compositions soprano style.
Over a free-wheeling chat, the duo discussed their fascination for the musical repertoire of Hildegard, the vibrations they experience while reciting Sanskrit slokas, the preferred vocal register of Western and Carnatic exponents, and about Indian mysticism’s conception of “Om” as the promordial sound and how modern scientists are now identifying with the idea of natural radio in the universe.
The Auroville performance attempted to accentuate the contrasts between the Gregorian plainchant and the expansive quality of Hildegard’s music. As they explained, while Pope Gregory aggregated medieval chants, essentially rooted in Greek and Hebrew music, to a distinctively Christian liturgical standard, Hildegard spearheaded a renaissance in the sphere of sacred music around the 12th century.
Unlike Gregorian music which is still integral to liturgy, Hildegard pieces are no longer part of Church service; the compositions now belong more to the realm of classical concert music, in new age alternative healing spaces and medievalist/liturgical research.
Interestingly, the Language Lab’s advocacy of the Tomatis healing technique through music, especially for children with autism and other learning disorders, uses precisely these two types of music, the Gregorian chant and Hildegard pieces in passive (listening) and active (sing-along) formats.
A rendition of “Kyrie eleison”, the only Hildegard composition for the Mass Ordinary, was performed as a set piece “to add a cathedral-like feel to the space”.
As much as Western fascination for Hildegard is inspired by her stature as an early feminist icon, she was a true visionary who, in addition to 70 pieces of music, also produced writings on profound themes such as the cosmos and natural health, said Kim.
“We found her music to be very beautiful because it is the first form of music in the West that takes advantage of how high the woman voice can sing”. “This set the early template of classical music where Hildegard is really extending what a woman can do besides using a system of neumatic notation that was a precursor to the modern Western notation”.
In terms of her prophetic vision and transformative power, Hildegard who was adept at the stringed psaltery was much like the 16th century Indian mystic poet Meerabai who is pictured with the ektaara, they felt.
The duo, who have performed at the White House towards the end of the Bill Clinton Presidency for a festival curated by Hillary Clinton, also find certain similarities with Indian music, especially the alaap in the dhrupad, and the spirituality-centred Rabindra Sangeet.
The duo, who are drawn to The Mother (Mirra Alfassa), spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo and founder of Auroville, were at the Matrimandir amphitheatre for the New Year to present excerpts from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in Gregorian and Vedic styles.
Another project was inspired by Lata Mangeshkar’s recital of chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita. Using a 1970 recording of Lata’s invocation as reference, and relying on transliteration and translation, they presented their co-creation, Kim rendering the baritone parts and Heather the soprano sections, at the 7th International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium at Auroville in February.
The duo, who feel fortunate to be engaging in “projects that benefit humanity” has a slate of projects, that include a symphonic work for the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil and a music album based on the sounds of the Antarctica in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey.
“We feel that constantly engaging with sacred music has been transformative at a personal level…it has made us kinder, more merciful”, said Kim.
“India as a place for music is the possibly the most interesting in the world…. because it has its deep-rooted traditions and this outward-looking mindset that readily engages with West Asian, Western classical, Western contemporary and jazz ”.
Published – October 16, 2024 10:43 pm IST
Read Comments
- Copy link
- Telegram
READ LATER
Remove
SEE ALL
PRINT