How did you spend your time from ages two to four? Learning the alphabet maybe? Mumbling, jumping, rioting, and throwing up – that’s how that period looked to me personally. Now cut to Grammy-nominated artist Varijashree Venugopal, who merely at 18 months old took up the mantle of memorising the ragas of Carnatic music, simply by her own accord. Mind you, she couldn’t even form sentences and gave her family a pleasant shock, only to emerge as one of the most prolific musical figures of our generation.
I was supposed to watch her perform a month ago, at a live show in Mumbai which I had to miss for some unfortunate reason. And now chatting with her over Zoom after the nomination announcement just felt fated. Here are excerpts from my chat with Varijashree Venugopal:
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ELLE: Tell our audience a little bit about yourself, and how your relationship with music blossomed.
Varijashree Venugopal: I come from a background of musicians and although they are not professional musicians, they have been very tasteful and are thorough music appreciators. I was very lucky to be born into a musical family and receive the kind of conditioning that I received right from when I was five or six months old. When I was about 18 months old, my parents figured out that I was trying to say the names of some words at a concert and then they realised that I was naming some of the Carnatic ragas. So, my father came back home after that concert, and while I could barely even make sentences I was able to name about 40 to 50 ragas.
I think that was a very overwhelming incident for my parents and then, they started training me slowly in a very organic, non-formal way, like a little game or something. I used to go with my dad to buy groceries, so he would carry me and sing different kinds of compositions and teach me. And at that age, our brains are so free and full of space and ready to receive any and all information. So, by the time I was four, my parents had already trained me in a few of the most important fundamentals and compositions of Carnatic music.
ELLE: What was your family and bandmates’ reaction to being nominated for a Grammy?
Varijashree Venugopal: I come from a very humble, classical music background and every day, I’m figuring out new techniques and ways of using my voice in non-traditional formats. So, that is what led me to be discovered by a few of the most amazing, fantastic, legendary musicians across the world. People that I have been idolising and admiring for so long have provided me with opportunities to collaborate with them or invite them to play my music. So, this already is a fantastic and extraordinary journey for me. You know, to say something like this is a dream come true for me.
Because it is one thing at a time, one day at a time and there are a thousand attempts and maybe one success story. So, even with the Grammy nominations, whatever has happened has definitely resulted in immense happiness and excitement for my family and everybody who has rooted for me. So, this is definitely a very important milestone and a reassurance for all independent artists. Even a nomination or a win, whatever it is, it just means that whatever you are doing is being noticed.
ELLE: What was it like working with Michael League for your new album?
Varijashree Venugopal: Yeah, so, Snarky Puppy is one of the groups I absolutely adore and I happened to meet Michael through a common circle in New York about eight years ago. We watched a concert together and exchanged some ideas and he was also one of the greatest inspirational sources who pushed me into writing more of my own music. So, that’s where our conversation began about six years ago when I very actively started writing during the COVID time period. Then we got into production in Bangalore in 2022.
ELLE: Do you ever feel burnout from music?
Varijashree Venugopal: Burnout does happen. Most of the time it’s physical. And travel has been extensive in the past few years especially, so the time zones and the food difference, jetlag does leave an impact and it does affect the body on a certain level. But to be honest with you, I am very fortunate that most of the time I haven’t felt creative burnout. I think it’s the case with me because of all the different kinds of music that I am playing and am exposed to, in every project.
I am not playing the same music for 100 shows a year. I am working on my project. I am also a featured soloist in one of the European Contemporary Classical Operas. I am also doing something with a big band in Brazil. So that takes effort and sometimes it gets frustrating because every new piece of material is a new conception, a new pregnancy period and a new delivery. You know you have to go through that every time. But I enjoy that process because I know I will hit the sweet spot later.
ELLE: Is there a trend in today’s music scene that you really dislike?
Varijashree Venugopal: That everything is so concise today. An artist might not have the freedom or liberty to say, present a song that is 12 minutes long. I would say the attention span is the problem now. A piece of work or art is now being judged only in 10 or 20 seconds. Is that fair? I don’t think so. Sometimes it is storytelling, right? A song is a story and every story unfolds in a different way and takes a different amount of time to move from one phase to the other.
So by shortening it or keeping everything under 60 seconds or 30 seconds because the algorithm pushes it, is unfair to the art itself or to the expression. Sometimes the creator wants to start the actual song only three minutes into it. So the least that the artist can expect is for a fully involved audience and a patient one.
ELLE: What are you working on currently? And are there any touring plans?
Varijashree Venugopal: Yeah so I have a few tours coming up for different things. There might be something where I might be a guest for one of Jacob Collier’s projects sometime soon. The USA and Europe run is in the pipeline and we’re working on it currently. Apart from that there is a live collective of this six-piece band that I recently produced. Where it will be a video and audio production. I just got it mixed and the videos are being edited. Maybe it’ll start getting published one by one you know.
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