GUILFORD-Joel Veena Eisenkramer, known professionally as Joel Veena, has recently released a new album, Cardinal, in the North Indian Classical genre.
Veena has been making music for around 25 years, and Cardinal marks his 12th album of self-produced music. It is currently available on all streaming platforms.
Since 2007, he has split his time between India and the U.S. and has studied and performed classical Hindustani music on the 20-stringed Indian slide guitar, which he describes on his website as a "relatively new instrument, created by modifying the Hawaiian steel guitar and arch top Jazz guitar," invented by a Hawaiian musician, Tau Moe, in Calcutta during the 1940s.
"I'm playing from the Hindustani music idiom, which is also known as North Indian classical music. [...] It's been an oral tradition for the last 15 or 16 years," Veena said. "And then there are elements of other styles introduced."
Veena describes Cardinal in his publicity materials as "a sonic journey in the Hindustani slide guitar created to listen from beginning to end, that also includes electronic drums, beats, and poetry."
"It kind of runs the gamut from original pieces more towards the traditional idiom as we move out, and it's framed by two poems," he explained.
One poem is sung by Veena, and the other - which is the final stanza of the first poem, translated in Hindi - is recited at the end by his wife, Vidhi Salla.
An 'entry point'
Veena melds contemporary Western music styles with the sound inspired by ragas, music from North India's traditions.
He said he is trying to create music that is an invitation to people not familiar with the style, so "they can find an entry point."
"That's the reason for combining it with things like electronic beats and music with heavy bass, because all our popular music on the radio right now is these deep bass, electronic drums," he said.
"Every time that we play, we are looking back at generations of musicians who have played the same music, thinking about their ideas, maybe incorporating them. And then we can't help but introduce our modern perspective on top of that," Veena explained.
"This idea of traditional not being something that is very old or static, this idea of tradition is our life ways, our current life ways," he continued. "And we draw on the life ways of those people who have come before us, in particular, artists [...] and musicians."
Veena went to school in California but returned to his home state of Vermont.
"This is where my roots are, where my family is, and it's a place that I feel a lot of connection and affinity with," he said.
"I love the Vermont landscape and the birds and everything," Veena observed. "So I feel like this [has] become my artistic home as well, a place that I draw inspiration from."
Veena's favorite bird is the cardinal. He watches and feeds the birds from his porch in Guilford.
The album's name "is a little bit metaphorical about the cardinal directions as well as [how] we are at a crossroads in history and time," he said. "I think right now, there's a lot of upheaval."
Taking flight
Veena underscored the importance of authenticity, especially in our daily modern life and in short form media. "As artists ourselves, we have to retain the ability to focus and keep our idea whole so that people can interact with it in an authentic way," he said, calling that ability "the most important resource for an artist."
"It always has been, but right now, especially, there are a lot of aspects of our daily modern life that interfere with our ability to focus - in particular, short form media that's created for social media to be consumed very quickly," Veena said, acknowledging that such art "can be fun and entertaining," and even necessary.
"Be authentic and try to collaborate with other people that you really like what they're doing and resonates with them, not necessarily because they're going to give you a stepping stone up to the next level."
Veena is co-producing a free community concert that will take place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, at Main Street Arts, 35 Main St., Saxtons River, to celebrate the birthday of Shri Gordon Korstange, a retired English teacher and poet whose work takes the musical cadence of the raga.
In December, Veena will be touring in India, performing as one of more than 400 artists at the Bir Music Festival, billed as India's largest mountain music festival. He is planning his first full tour of that country since the pandemic.
The goal of his music is simple, Veena writes on his website: "to bring light and energy to you so you can do the needful."
"Music is nothing if not useful: unlike commercial music, this music can hold and restore you, as it has done for me, in times of trouble and joy," he writes.
Cardinal, by Joel Veena, is available digitally on Bandcamp. In addition to the music, the download includes PDF liner notes with a collage, additional writing, photos of the process, and a 20-minute bonus track. For more information, visit joelveena.com.
This Arts item by Alyssa Grosso was written for The Commons.