Trina Basu & Arun Ramamurthy Nakshatra

On their transformative debut album Nakshatra, violinists Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy reach both deep into their past and high into the celestial realm, culminating in a lush and spiritual collaboration that bridges traditions and defies genres. A Sanskrit word evocative of constellations, stars, and interconnectedness, nakshatra perfectly encapsulates the album’s expansive sound, which quite surprisingly, is made by just two violins vibrating together in sublime harmony. Profoundly intimate yet bearing a cinematic gravitas, this work five years in the making conveys a feeling of two souls in conversation spanning hundreds of years into the past and the future.

Basu (Karavika) and Ramamurthy (Arun Ramamurthy Trio) are deeply rooted in traditions of South Indian classical music, Western chamber music, and jazz, uniquely positioning them to create a sound that feels ancient, orchestral, and contemporary or as The New Yorker put it, “free-flowing and globe-spanning.” Through the duo’s grounding in tradition paired with their fluency in improvisation, the compositions on Nakshatra have a clear architecture, which allows space for their two violins to be deliciously indiscernible while shining individually. Basu says of the duo’s collaboration, “Our hope for our music is to be a meeting point for the tradition of South Indian classical music—raga music—that Arun comes from and Western classical music and creative improvisation that I come from, and bring these pieces together in a way that creates a sound that reflects who we are, a sound that reflects our multicultural background, and our experiences in this world.”