A Day in the Life w/ Meena Ysanne: Finding Creative Inspiration and Connection During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Meena Ysanne is a British-American composer, conductor, and musician whose deeply artistic and inquisitive spirit carries throughout her creative endeavors. Meena works primarily within the world of string instruments, and her innovative style has garnered success that reaches far beyond traditional orchestral work, forging collaborations with respected and revered institutions, filmmakers, and musicians that encapsulate varied and diverse genres. In the past, Meena has worked with multiple esteemed musicians, touring internationally with names like Tiesto, Christina Perri, and The Smashing Pumpkins, for whom she arranged and conducted a symphony of their music. Recently cemented in New York City after many years of travel and locational change, Meena shared with me insights into her artistic process amidst the coronavirus pandemic, collaboration in a time of limited social interaction, and upcoming projects to look out for in the near future.
Though working within a home studio is not novel for Meena, the stationary element of working out of her New York apartment over the course of months has altered her experience of composition. “I bought a desk,” she shares, “For the previous 15 years or so, I’d been mainly working at a kitchen table, with manuscript paper, or just like, my laptop in bed.” For Meena, the small upgrade to a desk creates a greater sense of continuity in her work. “I leave my stuff from the night before… My instruments are all out of their cases, and are at arm’s reach, for spontaneous music,” she explains. In what is perhaps a collective truth, the massive changes brought upon by the coronavirus were sudden and unexpected, unfortunately leaving Meena without all of her instruments, which had been left in other places, primarily London and Los Angeles. Meena has successfully been able to build an impressive home studio, despite these setbacks, adding some exciting new pieces of gear. Notably, she has grown her home studio with a large keyboard, replacing the small portable keyboard that she had used while traveling, and samplers. The expectation of having a set collection of instruments has allowed Meena to work with gear which has not always been available due to travel, like her ElecTribe M EM-1 Music Production System, a drum machine she owned since the 90s, but which was in storage.
“For the live concert, a lot of people have kind of just lost hope, but we can still play live, it’s just changed format.” – Meena Ysanne.
The coronavirus has not only impacted her physical set up, but also undeniably shifted the way she approaches the collaborations which have been prominent in her career Beyond the obvious limitations on live music brought about by COVID-19, the greatest loss is the personal relationship developed between collaborators in a physical space. “There is a sense of loss,” Meena says. “If you meet somebody, for even an instant, in the flesh, you get something that you can’t really explain or describe, but there is an inspiration and a knowing about that person that can’t be conveyed on Zoom.” However, for Meena, physical constraints have not been entirely negative. She points out the increased opportunity for international collaboration, explaining the new value that exists in a phone call, which now allows for the type of artistic connection that was previously extremely reliant on air travel.
Meena’s outlook for the future of music as the world pushes through the pandemic is not entirely bleak. “For the live concert, a lot of people have kind of just lost hope, but we can still play live, it’s just changed format,” Meena remarks. As an artist who has always embraced the untraditional, she sees the challenge as finding new ways to adapt and create open-air, socially distant events to provide live music to communities at a time when the traditional concert structure is incompatible with public health, but our need for music is perhaps greater than ever.
She was responsible for organizing an act of political activism, New York City’s first Violin Vigil, a musical event honoring Elijah McClain, who was a Black man killed by police brutality, who played the violin. The Vigil was led by Sean Bennett, a young and gifted Black violinist. Attended by thousands in Washington Square, Meena described it as an intensely beautiful event on an artistic and musical level, while underlining the core reason it was organized, which was to protest McClain’s murder and demand justice. Meena elaborates, “Everybody was mourning for somebody they loved, even though we never met him. The audience was silent and focused in deep reverence, and the orchestra was so focused, and sensitive, and listening to each other. It was really one of the most artistically beautiful things I have ever been involved in.”
As for the future, Meena has refocused her attention on her work scoring for various visual media; primarily soundtracks for videos, feature films, and commercials, like this short film for Vans by Joel Fox and a featured video advertisement for Chanel, working with British designer, Jo Ratcliffe.
She is also currently producing a new multimedia project she’s co-creating with a celebrated Black female artist for a nonprofit, God’s Love We Deliver, entitled “Empire City,” with further details to be released in Fall 2020, and she’s developing another major project that’s equally arising from her work as an ally and activist.
Check out her website for a deeper look into Meena’s incredible work and absolutely compelling mind.
