Pearls
by Marta Gentilucci
Premiered at the Salzburg Mozarteum, May 2018, with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Recorded for Volume 3, Voices of the Pearl, forthcoming summer 2019.
Created at IRCAM, Paris, with Marta Gentilucci during her composer’s residency there in fall 2017, this piece sets the early Kannada vachana of Akka Mahadevi, the Shaivite ecstatic poet and mystic of Southern India, who lived in the 12th century.
Program Note
At its center, the historical figure of Akka Mahadevi, a saint and poetess who lived in South India in the twelfth century. She is considered one of the most significant writers of vacanas. Vachanas are short poetic compositions in the Kannada language, which is still spoken in Southern India, primarily in the state of Karnataka.
Akka Mahadevi broke all the social norms to pursue her spiritual path: she left her family and her husband to devote her life to Channamallikarjuna, an avatar of the deity. During her lifetime, she wandered to many locations in South India, joined a guru, and followed the religious practices of the Viraśaiva movement. Finally, she retired to a cave to meditate, and, in profound solitude and devotion to the Beloved, found enlightenment. Her poems describe her steps on this spiritual path. In poem, she tells of her passionate search for God in nature.
Pearls: I
Vachana # 144 by Akka Mahadevi (c.1130-1160)
(with great thanks to Prof. Sajjan G. Shiva for translation and pronunciation help)