Bengaluru-based musician Varijashree Venugopal is all set to showcase her debut original album today

You know that feeling when you finally achieve something that you always wanted to do? Bengaluru-based singer and flautist, Varijashree Venugopal is in the exact place, as she gears up to present her debut original album release concert. The album, titled Vari, is something she has been working on for the past eight years. She always wanted to make a full-fledged album and having the opportunity to present it first in her city is like a dream come true. The performance will feature Grammy Award winning artiste Michael League on the bass and synth bass, Vivek Santosh on keys, Pramath Kiran on percussion, Jayachandra Rao on mridangam and Apoorva Krishna on violin. Often considered as a child prodigy who could identify 100 carnatic ragas at the age of 18 months, Varijashree began performing carnatic concerts at the age of four. She has been featured alongside and collaborated with few of the most notable musical personalities in the world such as Bobby McFerrin, Jacob Collier, Victor Wooten, Bela Fleck, Hamilton de Holanda, Eddie Gomez, Ricky Kej and more. Before she takes to the stage, we get chatty with Varijashree to uncover everything you need to know about her upcoming performance.

Your upcoming concert is your debut original album release. Can you tell us more about the album?

The concert will feature songs from my album Vari. It’s extremely special that the first concert of the album in India is happening in my hometown, Bengaluru and this album has been a dream of about seven to eight years. In fact, I have always had in my mind this thought of coming out with a full length original music album for a long time but for the longest time I have always believed that this is not something that’s going to be easy. Even though I had album releases before, this project happened very organically. I had already started writing one or two songs and that’s when I met Michael League, about 9 or 10 years ago. We met through common circles in New York and he was familiar with what I was doing with respect to the crossover of musical cultures. That’s how it all began. He presented the idea of making a record together and the more he spoke about it, the more I believed in it and started writing songs. I also started writing lyrics, which is a new addition to my set of experiences as an artiste. In a matter of about four to five years, we had an entire album. I wrote about 15 to 16 tunes and we selected about 12. This album is special in many ways since it is deeply rooted in the sonic ballet of Indian music.

Can you tell us more about the collaborations in this album?

Michael League is the producer of this album. Apart from him, Pramath Kiran is the co-producer and we have more than 35 musicians on the album. Some of them are from South India, some are from the North and a few artistes from outside India, as well. The people I have collaborated with are the ones I have admired for the longest time and it’s such an honour to have them share their gifts into this album.

Being someone from Bengaluru, it only made sense to release the album here first. But do you plan on taking the album to other cities in India as well?

Yes, of course it is very special to have the first album release concert in India in my hometown and we also plan on taking this to other cities. We play in Mumbai on May 18 and we also plan for a longer multi-city India tour sometime late this year. We are excited to play this music in India since this is a very new sound that we are exploring and we are very eager to present this to people here in our country and abroad.

You have played a huge role in taking carnatic music to other cities in the world. What is the progress that you have seen with respect to other cities accepting carnatic music?

When I have performed outside of India, the response has always been so warm. It’s heartening and heartwarming to see the enthusiasm that people have to learn more about the traditions of Indian music and I hope this continues further.

INR 499 onwards. May 17, 7 pm. At Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Vyalikaval.

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