Manasamitra: The Open Fund for Organisations
Mentoring with Manasamitra
Supriya Nagarajan is a musician with an inter/national profile, describing herself as South Indian classical meeting electronica and contemporary western music. Being conscious of the acute lack of role models in the sector, she decided to develop her own mentoring skills, creating a path for others to follow and allowing diversity to flourish.
This project will provide mentoring and creative development support for 6 emerging female composers from minority backgrounds, who will receive advice and guidance to facilitate the creation of new cross-genre fusion work for performance. The creative potential of each composer will be nurtured and developed through research, practise and mutual support in one-to-one online sessions, before meeting up as a group towards the end of the project. The group will decide on the format of a public presentation of their work, which may be a new piece or the re-working of an existing work that has benefited from the process.
Feedback from the pilot cohort has confirmed a need, with 100% positive feedback and comments such as:
“The chance to be mentored by a South Asian woman at a moment when I was both exploring composing for the first time, and … when I was starting to think about my family history.”
“It was the chance to speak to someone who has first-hand knowledge of being a South Asian female musician who is in a position career wise that I someday hope to be.”