World-renowned gypsy jazz guitarist and composer Stéphane Wrembel is currently on an Asia tour, travelling from East Asia to India. He gets candid with us about how performing for different audiences has shaped his music and what it felt like to return to Bengaluru exactly ten years after his last visit. He also shares his thoughts on composing for films versus his own music, his natural writing process and how each live set changes based on the mood of the audience and the place.
You are currently on an Asia tour that has taken you from East Asia to India. Has the variety of audiences influenced your performances so far?
Absolutely! Travelling through cultures so different from one another feels like holding a mirror up to the soul. It invites reflection on one’s own cultural framework and deeper metaphysical questions, while opening new inner landscapes. This journey has been both an outward expansion and a quiet inner redefinition. As for India, I was already familiar with the immense power of its musical, mythological and metaphysical universe and I cannot wait to dive deeper into it.
You first played in Bengaluru back in 2015. How did it feel to be returning after so many years?
I was deeply excited. Returning to a place is very different from arriving for the first time. It is no longer about pure discovery, but about navigating with awareness, listening differently and seeing more clearly. It was exactly ten years to the day since I was last here. I knew the city had evolved and certain memories resurfaced along the way.
How does composing for film differ from writing for your own albums and concerts?
The process is similar, but inverted. I believe music should be dreamed not calculated. When I compose for film, I respond to imagery and emotion. When I compose my own music, I respond first to a sensation and only later understand which part of myself has been given a voice.
Can you describe how you work when writing your own music?
It often begins with small ideas, short rhythmic gestures or melodic fragments, which I record and return to later. When the urge to write arrives, I allow these ideas to unfold into a complete piece, recording a simple demo before the band brings their own voices to it.
How do you decide what goes into your set?
There is a basic framework, a path we know, but within it, we listen closely to the energy of the moment. We follow the atmosphere, the audience and the place itself.
INR 750 onwards. January 29, 9.30 pm onwards. At Windmills, Whitefield.
Written by: Anoushka Kundu
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