Welcome to the new segment on the 3S Blog — "Why’d We Book it?"
We want to bring our 3S community into the know on the events coming up at 3S that have us shouting from the rooftops: “Hello! Friends! Something super FUN is coming to Portsmouth!”
We know that not all of the acts we book are widely known. This is partly because it is paramount to our vision as a contemporary arts organization to bring up-and-coming acts to our Performance Space stage for all of you culturally curious folks out there.
We don’t want you to miss out on an event that would have been right up your alley just because you had never heard of an act before. That’s why we’re highlighting some of our upcoming events in this segment — to give you a greater understanding into the kind of night you’re in for when you attend.
ganavya Friday, September 19
“Is it world music? Is it jazz? I don’t think anybody really cares about any of that. As soon as you hear ganavya’s voice, you want to hear it some more.” — Esperanza Spalding, New York Times
Described by Wall Street Journal as “among modern music’s most compelling vocalists,” New York- born, Tamil Nadu-raised singer and transdisciplinarian, ganavya will be at 3S Artspace on Thursday, May 29. The Guardian wrote, her “voice had a delicate emotive heft that could turn stoics into sobbing wrecks.”
The results yield an innovative and deeply moving blend of spiritual jazz and South Asian devotional music, and were initially recorded and edited by Ryan Renteria, then further edited and mixed by Nils Frahm at LEITER’s Funkhaus studio in 2024.
Of course, if you ask ganavya – raised in India’s southernmost state and withdrawn from school at a young age to study music with her family – what first inspired her to make this remarkable record, her answer is typically honest. “Loneliness,” she replies, before gently, thoughtfully elaborating. “You were raised in a village, then one day you wake up and you’re a graduate student at Harvard. The life you live doesn’t make sense to people back home anymore, and what you’re seeking is that sense of village, so you invite as many people as possible.”
That said, building a village, even a temporary shelter, requires cash. “I thought I’d call ten people and maybe five would say yes,” ganavya recalls softly, “but all ten said yes, then another forty said yes, and before we knew it, it was ‘Where is someone like me going to get the money to do something like this?’ And it doesn't really make sense that a graduate student was able to afford this, but every step of the way there was a grace much larger than me.”
Thus, as is often the way with ganavya, things worked out miraculously. She is, after all, a woman whose path has led from a childhood spent dancing and singing on the pilgrimage trail to earning four degrees – including at Berklee College of Music, UCLA and Harvard, to whom she was recommended by Quincy Jones.
So, yes...it may have been chance that won the grant which helped establish Daughter of a Temple, and perhaps it was luck the opera house was available, and maybe a landlord would have offered six beautiful houses in a single street to anyone who asked, and it could even be that a temple sharing the name of an Alice Coltrane track regularly handed out $10,000 to pay for strangers’ flights. And sure, coincidence might have ensured cousins from India she hadn’t seen in years would be performing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum around the time, and that Vijay Iyer, whose father had visited her in dreams, would be in Houston anyway, and that Berklee’s Ryan Renteria was available to record the proceedings. But, then again... Really?
Keen to emphasise the manner in which rituality resides in spirituality, ganavya began the first day by presenting everyone with customized prayer beads, then washed their feet with honey, turmeric and warm water before they improvised around Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme.' “After that,” she recalls, “people started realising that they knew each other.”
What followed was an extraordinary experience in pursuit of a common goal, a coming together of people, beliefs and musical styles as much as a mysterious, unfathomable coming home. “We were moving with the contour of a village, deciding in real time to make music which sometimes involved forty people singing, then suddenly the entire group was doing a version of The Rite Of Spring and dancing.”
And this magic isn’t restricted to participants. Daughter of a Temple’s purpose, ganavya will tell you, is that people “know there's a village for you, always in the ether. The worlds we dream of are possible when we come at it with the right amount of discipline and devotion. I hope that’s what resonates with them, that it tells the story of this random girl who dreamed of this world and then it manifested itself. I hope it makes them feel less alone, because that’s what it did for me. I think of it as proof that prayer works and love exists...”
So… Why’d we book ganavya at 3S?
Critically acclaimed vocalist, ganavya, sold out shows in Philly, Chicago, and NYC last fall, and she hasn't played our area yet. It felt important that we bring her incredible music to the Seacoast for an intimate and unforgettable show before she gets too big for our venue.
We think this will be a unique and memorable night, one to make you feel present in the moment and absorbed into the sound. It’s a set that as the New York Times says, “demands patience and stillness,” but one that rewards. “There weren’t many phones out during the show’s 90 minutes, and despite her being the lone vocalist onstage, the audience’s attention didn’t waver.”
Come see this incredible vocalist in our intimate Performance Space before she takes to bigger stages!