Vocalist Pallavi Seth, who performs for the first time in the city, talks about her journey as a Hindustani classical vocalist to training as an opera singer When her classmates from school were prep
Vocalist Pallavi Seth, who performs for the first time in the city, talks about her journey as a Hindustani classical vocalist to training as an opera singer
When her classmates from school were prepping for their class 12 board exams, Pallavi Seth remembers rehearsing for the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with music by Andrew Lloyd Weber. “Music is like a service to me,” says the 26-year-old New York-based vocalist, who grew up in Delhi. In Pune to meet and spend time jamming with guitarist Samvardhan Singh, Seth was in the audience at a gig in the city when she was invited to perform with the band that night. “I was just hanging out at Pecos and was asked to perform as a guest on one track. The next thing I know, I have been booked for a full gig,” says Seth.
What everyone is curious about, when Seth steps on stage, is how her training as an opera singer — she studied opera and voice performance at Mannes School of Music in New York City — and Hindustani classical vocalist under the legendary Benares gharana singer Girija Devi, will influence her performance. “It is this blending of two cultures and versatility in sound that drives me. Most of the songs that I perform are completely improvised and there’s this lingering, operatic vibrato that you will hear in every track. My voice has traction for high-sitting operating vocals,” she adds.
In Delhi, Seth also trained in Hindustani classical music at the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya and every summer vacation was spent in the US learning more new music. “In the US, it was a whole new world and I was seeking the next thing that I could learn whether it was jazz, rock or opera,” says Seth, who is the only musician from a family of hoteliers. During one such trip to the US, Seth enrolled into a short summer course in vocals at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. “This was the point of discovery for me and the entire genre of opera opened up. Until then, I didn’t know what a treble clef or a bass clef was,” she adds.
Soon after graduating from college, Seth moved to New York to pursue opera singing full time. A chance encounter with her first mentor, pianist Jahye Kim, at a café in NYC was her biggest breakthrough as a student of music. “I heard her discussing Tchaikovsky with another artist and my father urged me to go have a chat with her. I introduced myself and asked her if she could help me pursue my dream of making it into Mannes,” recalls Seth. Kim, who is the artistic director of the Union City Philharmonic Orchestra, took Seth under her wing and trained her for a full year before she could audition at Mannes School of Music. “Everything about opera including the style, breathing technique and discipline is so different from everything that I have learnt and I cannot be grateful enough to Kim for guiding me,” says Seth. The vocalist went onto perform at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and continues to perform as a professional opera singer and is also part of a jazz-prog rock band named Steel A Stool. “In the West, the audiences are as curious to know what an Indian classical singer brings to the table while performing Western classical music,” says Seth.
This evening, she performs as part of the Pallavi Seth Collective comprising Singh on guitar and Rahul Kulkarni on percussion. Since it’s a Valentine’s Day gig at a club, there may not be space for opera at the gig, admits Seth. “I might sing some of Adele’s songs since everything sits high in her music and her big voice has heavily influenced my work. I might also do some Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston,” she adds. Seth will also perform mash-ups of English and Hindi hits. “I love Bollywood music and I have grown up with it so my heart is in it,” says Seth, who has also just begun working on her own originals.