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About the Composer

Shruthi Rajasekar

Composer and performer Shruthi Rajasekar is a McKnight Composer Fellow with the American Composers Forum, Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music (ARNCM), winner of the Global Women in Music Award from the United Nations, and recipient of the Marshall Scholarship from the Government of the United Kingdom. Shruthi’s music...

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Shruthi Rajasekar Music

Give It Power

Name: Give It Power
SKU: SRM025
Availability: InStock

Shruthi Rajasekar

In her punchy and accessible work Give It Power, Shruthi Rajasekar writes of the importance of impermanence in stewardship: to not try to “own” or “claim” any living being that you’re encouraging but, rather, to “give it power.. and send it on its way.”

Difficulty: 2

Duration: 3-5 min.

SRM025

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SATB choir & piano

We can tend to our planet generously and graciously by uplifting others – that’s the message of Give It Power. Educators and mentors know that part of empowering the next generation means giving them the reins to move onto their next phase. But goodbyes aren’t forever, stresses the composer. In the text of Give It Power, Rajasekar writes, “In my language, we say ‘Go, then come back’.”

Composer’s Notes

Inspired by the mission and work of UrbanRoots in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Give It Power explores the theme of empowerment alongside one of the core spiritual tenets of Hinduism and other faiths: the philosophy of detachment. In nurturing that which is in front of us – our plants, our communities, the next generation – we eventually reach the point at which we must let them go. For those moving forward, they, too, must acknowledge the parting. But in my language of Tamil, when we leave, our goodbye (“naan poitu varen”) actually translates as, “I’ll go, and come back.” With this faith, we release our loved ones – knowing that, in some shape or form, we’ll see them again.

– Shruthi Rajasekar

Text

Plant the seed and give it the power to flower,
to transfigure
to grow future power
Nothing is beyond ourselves, if we plant the seed
Earth has blessed us: to use these hands
to turn raw seeds into sustenance
to make, and grow.

We are stewards
tasked with growing the future
Don’t try to hold the plant we grow
Just sent it on its way

Beginnings are the perfect place
to plant your hope without a claim
Give way to new

Start afresh, a clean slate.
Uproot the old, and make space
to see possibility

Our job is not to own it
just to help it thrive and give it power
to fly on its own.

Know that walking towards something new
is a farewell to before.
But not goodbye–
in my language, we say,
“Go, then come back.”

Give it power,
and let go

-Shruthi Rajasekar

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