The Poetry of Improvisation, with author Mira T. Sundara Rajan

This is the second part of our conversation with author, pianist, and law professor Mira T. Sundara Rajan. In this segment, she describes her experience of poetry and how it relates to her experience of playing composed music. Mira also reads poetry by Percy Blythe Shelley and provides a translation of poetry by her great-grandfather Mahakavi C. Subramania Bharati. She tells a fascinating story about Bharati improvising poetry.

The musical interlude towards the beginning features music composed and performed by Bradley Vines on baritone and alto saxophones. It also includes quotes from Anil Seth and Swami Sarvapriyananda. The quote from Anil Seth was taken from a masterclass he gave for the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/2022/mar/23/understanding-consciousness-a-masterclass-with-neuroscientist-anil-seth). The quote from Swami Sarvapriyananda was taken from an interview he gave on the Waking Up app with Sam Harris (https://dynamic.wakingup.com/course/COFFD9B?code=SCE8C67C8&share_id=0B98BDDA&source=content%20share).

There is a segment of music at the end from a rendition of Bharati’s poem Nandala by O.S. Arun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWlmEMqO98).

Mira’s concert in the Noontime Concerts series will be announced here: https://noontimeconcerts.org/

For information about Mira’s activities and forthcoming books, see her website: www.professormira.com/