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About the Composer
Shruthi Rajasekar
Cantus
Indigo (SATB)
Passionate and earnest depiction of love and heartbreak.
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Indigo
SATB, a cappella
At turns ardent and sweet, this piece deftly captures the emotional tumult of love. The engaging and accessible a cappella setting highlights the contemporary text through naturalistic rhythms and thoughtful word-painting.
“Shruthi Rajasekar’s writing is vibrant, energetic and immediately memorable. Indigo is a striking yet immediately approachable work, sitting between the borders of contemporary commercial and classical music. Vividly setting C. Luke Soucy’s prose, the music reminds us all of the intensity of our own teenage crushes and the feelings that persist many years after. It was a delight to premiere this version in the United Kingdom and I am delighted to recommend it far and wide.”
– Cole Bendall, conductor (www.colebendall.com)
Composer’s Notes
Indigo is the color English forgot. In the “roygbiv” rainbow sequence we’re taught in school, it’s easily the odd hue out. Where many languages divide the huge range of our blue into two basic colors, like Italian’s light azzurro and darker blu, English only makes this distinction when it has to. Even the name indigo refers to the “Indic” dyes the Romans imported from India to complete their color wheel. It’s a name for something that feels foreign even though it belongs.
Falling in love can feel like this, too. Someone appears in your life who definitely came from outside it, but now just as definitely feels needed there. Later , you find out if you can translate between your languages.
I was probably twenty-two when I wrote this poem. His eyes weren’t indigo of course (are anyone’s?) but the way they looked to me, and through me, felt beyond the colors of my former life.
-C. Luke Soucy, 2025
Text
I’ve seen the way you look at him,
it’s either love or fear.
I am drowned in the crook of his elbow,
I am turned in the twist of his ear.
And does it change from day to day,
or drift while you’re apart?
I pulse to the pace of his breathing,
I breathe to the beat of his heart.
Then do you think they’re worth it,
all your tears and fears and sighs?
I die when he looks to the distance,
but I burn in his indigo eyes.
-C. Luke Soucy
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