Singer Kalyani Nair set to launch a new EP featuring The Indian Choral Ensemble

Kalyani Nair
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

The seed for Kalyani Nair’s song ‘Nam tham’ was sown 13 years ago. The singer-composer wrote the first part of the song in 2010 then recorded it live in Chennai with a 25-piece vocal group for a festival promotion. “However, it didn’t take off,” says Kalyani. “I casually listened to it during the lockdown and decided to develop it.” The song is among the first of four tracks that are part of Kalyani’s latest EP that is to be launched this month. The tracks have been presented by 25 singers from the 40-piece mixed vocal group The Indian Choral Ensemble that Kalyani started with her friend Karthik Manickavasakam.

‘Nam tham’ is a meditative piece that mainly has two syllables throughout its six minutes of run time. It rises, falls, and lingers, and Kalyani’s voice joins in like birdsong on a rainy day, carried forward by the choir. The song is the result of Kalyani’s experiments with voices. She is also trained in Western Classical, and ‘Nam tham’, she says “reflects her Indian and western sensibilities. I have experimented with how the placement of words with voices that sing in different pitches creates interesting soundcapes,” she says adding that initially, her intention was to just record the song and move on.

But as the team met and sang together more often, she was inspired to create more music. “Somehow, it all got very exciting,” she says. The second song, titled ‘Omanaththingal’ is in Malayalam and is based on a popular poem by Iraimman Thambi; the third is titled ‘Iru Manam’. The EP also features a Hindi version of ‘Nam tham’ that Kalyani wrote as a lullaby to her daughter. Kalyani says all four songs have accompanying videos with dance choreography. “The songs in the EP are tied together by dance, through which we have communicated stories for each of them,” she explains.

The Indian Choral Ensemble’s mission is to take choral music to the masses. “Since Indian music is rooted in melody, people here lack exposure to choral music,” she feels. Through it, she also wants to aid contemporary composers to write more. “If they’ve written something, they can walk in with their score to our rehearsal space to hear how their music sounds,” she says, adding that for a lot of composers, it is not easy to gauge how their music translates from notes on a piece of paper.

Kalyani’s latest film outing was ‘Naan gaali’ from the Manikandan-starring Tamil film Good Night. The song was composed by Sean Roldan and Kalyani sang the female parts as well as arranged the strings.  

The songs in the EP will be available on all audio streaming platforms such as Spotify, Gaana, and Apple Music, and Kalyani’s YouTube channel @kalyaninairmusic. She will be releasing one song a month, starting July 31.