Journal of Transnational American Studies

This conversation with saxophonist and composer Aakash Mittal examines musical practice as a form of spirituality. Mittal discusses some of the environmental and structural forces—such as transnational movement and cross-racial family dynamics—that shaped his childhood access to Indian culture and religio-philosophy. In coming to terms with those forces, Mittal developed musical performance and listening as personal rituals that comprised the spiritual component of a larger process of cultural, diasporic healing. Within that process, reception, for Mittal, became not a passive transmission but an active construction of relations. In the course of this interview, Mittal connects his active construction of relations to his training and participation in both Black American and South Asian musical cultures. In addition to his training, Mittal discusses his recent participation in composer Du Yun's work with an Asian indigenous community, the Jino. Importantly, Mittal emphasizes the historical specificity of South Asian spirituality, Black American music, and Asian indigenous traditions, while also finding ways to connect those histories. Thus our conversation focuses on how reception as the act of building relations between people, histories, and environments moves beyond traditional modes of inheriting religio-philosophical practices.