SFCM’s South Asian students have a new club to join and celebrate their musical heritage, and it’s already one that’s building connections across the Bay Area.

Mukil Narayanan.

Composition student Mukil Narayanan wasted no time upon his arrival to SFCM, founding the South Asian Affinity Group (or S.A.A.G.—and yes, the play on words is intentional) his very first semester at school. “Coming to the Conservatory, I noticed a lot of South Asians, and this club is just a safe space for us to hang out,” he says, though another goal for the group is to celebrate the music its members grew up with. “South Indian music, and especially as a whole, South Asian music, has an incredibly rich heritage, and we just don't recognize it enough,” Narayanan says. “That's also partly why I founded this club, so we can advocate more for that tradition: It's something new for a lot of people and it has a much richer palette of melody and harmony than people would think.”

Some of the cross-pollination is already happening naturally: Amithav Gautam, a guitarist in the Roots, Jazz, and American Music program, has already been featured by CBS Bay Area news reporter Devin Frehley in a piece celebrating South Asian blues musicians in the Bay Area. 

“Indian classical music is based on improvisation, and that's what we're doing in jazz—improvising almost all the time” Gautam says. “I'm really trying to draw from the Indian classical music vocabulary and try to put it in jazz; maybe it's just like one or two notes that I’d ornament the same way a classical Indian musician would, but that can still make a huge difference.”

Amithav Gautam.

Technology and Applied Composition student Ihtesham Baig—who, like Gautam, arrived directly from India for his freshman year—actually balked at his first instruction in Indian classical music as a child, which was on the set of hand drums called tablas. “I hated playing them as a kid,” he recalls, “because it was so strict. I didn't like Indian classical as much, but right now I’m gravitating more towards those sounds after coming here, which is kind of funny.” Baig’s focus is currently on film composing, and like Narayanan and Gautam, he’s interested in how to apply sounds from his background to his studies at SFCM.

S.A.A.G.’s membership is so varied that its members offer each other entirely different perspectives on their shared country. “Apart from me and Amithav, not one of us speaks the same language, literally,” Narayanan says. “So we all have a way of seeing India, a different perspective on our shared heritage.”

Arjun Verma.

While S.A.A.G. has fairly standard club activities planned—they held a Diwali event and screen Indian movies—Narayanan has been reaching out to other South Asian musicians in the Bay Area, and his efforts have come to fruition in conjunction with an upcoming performance by sitarist Arjun Verma at SFCM. Like all clubs at SFCM, it is open to everyone. 

Verma’s credentials are impeccable: His teaching lineage can be traced to Ali Akbar Khan, arguably the most famous Indian musician in the West other than Ravi Shankar. “I got my mind blown sitting in classes with Khan,” Verma recalled. “It's like getting to sit down with Mozart; that level of genius where you can really see it's unfathomable.” Verma now teaches at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael and often guest-lectures at SFCM, saying “We at the College side are very excited to engage with SFCM students in a really bilateral kind of way … Even learning a little bit about our tradition can strengthen musicianship for musicians of all genres, and I’m living proof that that exchange can go both ways as well.”   

On March 23, SFCM is presenting a collaboration between the Ali Akbar College and SFCM entitled The Resonance Between. A collaboration with sarod master Alam Khan, the Del Sol Quartet, and several SFCM students, among others, The Resonance Between officially premieres at 4:00 p.m., though SFCM students will have the opportunity to attend an open tech rehearsal at 1:45 pm and then a 2:30-3:00 pm Q&A with the artists. And, thanks to Narayanan’s efforts, S.A.A.G. will also be hosting a separate Q&A with Verma on March 27 at 5 pm in the Foo Family Reading Room at SFCM’s Bowes Center. 

Months prior, Narayanan recalls, “I DM'd Arjun on Instagram,” Narayanan recalls, “and just asked, ‘Do you mind spending like an hour talking to us about Indian classical music and your influences and stuff?’ He didn't even ask anything in return.”

With the end of his freshman year approaching, Narayanan has already achieved a few of his early goals for S.A.A.G., and he’s already angling for the next big one: A S.A.A.G.-presented concert of music starring the Group’s members, a musical demonstration of the beauty of cross-cultural exchange. Keep your ears tuned.

Learn more about student life at SFCM and purchase tickets for The Resonance Between here.