Supriya Nagarajan and Donna McKevitt haven't seen each other in person for nearly seven years, but you wouldn't know it from the warm embrace they share as they finally reunite in the PRS Hub in London. After hitting it off at a PRS Foundation composer seminar in 2017, the pair stayed in touch but didn't manage to see each other again by the time lockdown was imposed in 2020.
That enforced period of isolation, though, provided the necessary impetus for Donna to reach out to Supriya after composing an instrumental piece which, the former tells M, was in need of some 'beautiful' vocals from the latter.
'I wanted something beautiful that would juxtapose the [sound of the instrumental], and I thought of you, obviously!' Donna tells Supriya, who replies: 'I'm so glad you did!' The end result was the entrancing Alai, which was released in February and marks what the pair tell us is just the beginning of a fruitful creative partnership.
'Anybody who's heard the first single is waiting for more to come,' says Supriya. 'So there's no reason why we can't do more together.' Donna adds: 'We'll possibly get some remixes of Alai as well: I need to send it out to some DJs! Apparently, we've written trance music. Who knew? I didn't!'
M sat down with Supriya and Donna to discuss the making of their track, their top tips for collaborating and why PRS grant support is so important for music creators.
You first met in 2017 at a PRS Foundation event for composers. What are your memories of that day?
Supriya Nagarajan: 'Harriet Wybor organised a symposium where composers were invited to come and talk about their own experiences, what composition meant and how people composed. It was an interesting discussion.'
Donna McKevitt: 'It was also about how we structure our lives, our work and our business. I was struck by you, because I remember thinking, "Wow, she's so organised, she's totally on this, she knows what she's doing!" I was really impressed by that.'
SN: 'Thank you! Perception, eh? It was a wonderful event. We sat next to each other and we clicked straight away. We kept in touch, and the story started there.'
DM: 'It was a great event because I remember being able to give all these young composers advice on [establishing] some sort of framework for their lives. It's hard enough as a composer, isn't it? It can be a quite lonely pursuit, even when you're established. But when you're starting out, you don't know where to go or what to do, so it was quite nice to be able to help people a little bit.'
SN: 'That symposium was quite productive from the point of view of music and the music world. [Turning to Donna] We've done some wonderful work...'
DM: 'Our first project! We will do more, obviously.'
SN: 'Absolutely! I can see an album happening...'
Why are these PRS community events so important for music creators?
DM: 'Well, for me, the main thing was trying to help young composers make sense of their career choice. They've made this choice, now what do they do? PRS is really great for those events, while the grant system is fantastic. It was well worth doing, wasn't it?'
SN: 'For me, it was really interesting because I got to know a little bit about the world of composition that you worked in. The world that I work in is different — it's acoustic, and I create work or go for grants or commissions — whereas you work with films, so I was learning from you. I also learned from all the young people in the room because each of them came with a different mindset. That's why it's so important, because sometimes you don't have the space to listen to each other about your journey, your practices and how you can actually achieve what you want to. You end up with so many different ideas, and I actually used a lot of the ideas from there in my mentoring and my work itself.'
Your first joint single Alai was released in February, though it was made during lockdown. How did it all come together?
DM: 'I was just messing around in my studio one day, and came up with a composition that made me think of you, Supriya! It came out of lots of programming and sampling, and I was able to put this track together that had an industrial, hard edge to it.
'I thought her voice would sound amazing on it, so I sent Supriya the composition, which was basically just an instrumental at that point. Supriya improvised a few lines and sent them to me, then I put the track I'd already made to the side and restructured what Supriya had done. I edited and moved it around, creating a form on its own with her vocal, then I built the track. That's the nuts and bolts of the process.'
SN: 'The track is called Alai, which in Tamil is "a wave". When I heard Donna's music, that was the word that came to mind. Any improvisation I did was then based on the subject as well as a little bit of the feel and emotion of it. I wanted it to be gentle: I could imagine myself standing on a beach waiting for this track to happen, that was the vibe.
'It was made during lockdown, which I think did a lot of things with people's minds. You needed that pocket of tranquillity every now and then in lockdown, so this track came at just the right time. It didn't feel industrial to me, it felt very tranquil. I think it was really important to actually work together [on the song], as it proved that, even if there's a lockdown, we could still make music. There were various reasons why we needed to do it.'
DM: 'Other than Zoom, we haven't actually seen each other since the PRS Foundation event. I was thinking about that earlier today, and how amazing it is that we created [music] just from one meeting and a couple of Zooms and telephone calls. More importantly, it was the musician-to-musician [connection] of listening to each other, responding to each other's work and creating. It's a very intuitive process.'
SN: 'There were other people in the room that day [at the PRS event], but then something connected us and that lasted. It didn't matter if we didn't meet again, we actually made that piece of music just out of that connection. For me, that's so precious.'
DM: 'It's quite magical.'
When it comes to collaborating, what songwriting tips can you offer?
DM: 'The most important thing is to listen to each other as you're working things out. If you're improvising with somebody you don't just listen to yourself, you listen to everyone else around you — that's how you create something. I think you can extend [that rule] to songwriting, so that's the number one rule for me. The other thing I would say is don't copy anyone else: try and stay true to what you are. If you're not doing that, then a few years later you could look back and think, "Oh, who am I? What's my identity?" It's really important to try and keep the faith and believe in what you're doing. People say that kind of stuff all the time, but it really is true.'
SN: 'For me, 95% of my music is collaboration and improvisation because my discipline is South Indian classical, which is not what I practice here in its traditional sense. So every time I get into a room with musicians from a different background, genre, culture or instrumentation, I have to listen, understand and then meld my vocals because the beauty lies in creating something new. Keeping to what I think I know best and staying in my comfort zone doesn't give me that joy of creating. I think all musicians should keep their ears and mind open so that they can create a new sound. Everybody's looking for an exciting new sound, so that's the way to do it.'
You've both received grant support from PRS to help fund your work. Why is this funding so important for music creators?
DM: 'I've been very lucky to receive lots of funding from PRS over the years. The first one was for a project with the York Dance Company through The Open Fund for Music Creators. It's a relatively simple and straightforward application process as well: hen it's not, it can really put people off if they have to spend lots of time on an application or even pay other people to help them with their funding. But PRS is fantastic.'
SN: 'I've received funding from PRS Foundation in various sorts of ways, both for the organisation that I run, Manasamitra, as well as for myself as a musician and composer. I think it's crucial and vital, especially in today's world where nobody is willing to take a risk on new music and give composers and musicians space to actually create work that they want to create, rather than having to create for a livelihood. The likes of the Women Make Music fund and the Composers' Fund give that space and opportunity to musicians and composers, and I think it's really vital that it carries on. I think it's also important to recognise and gracefully move away from funding when you've had your share, and make space for new composers and musicians to actually occupy that space. With that kind of support, I think you can create opportunities that will sustain you for some time.'
Supriya Nagarajan and Donna McKevitt's single Alai is out now.
Donna's new album The Swimming Diaries will be released on June 28, while you can find out more about the work of Supriya’s Manasamitra organisation here.
