Varijashree Venugopal Looks Back at 25 Years in Music and Her Upcoming Fusion Album with Snarky Puppy’s Michael League

For Carnatic and fusion artist Varijashree Venugopal, the idea of a thanksgiving concert to mark 25 years since her first classical performance as a solo artist came from her father, Carnatic artist H.S. Venugopal. “It marks where I come from, which is Carnatic music. That’s the language that I have trained and have been training in. And that is how I approach any other music that I listened to or any other collaborations coming from any part of the world,” she says.

We’re seated in an open-air café in a suburban part of south Bengaluru, where Varijashree has spent all her life, in the midst of encouraging parents, gurus and Carnatic music patrons. They’re all likely to be in the audience on May 17th, at the thanksgiving concert where the artist will perform alongside go-to accompanying musicians such as percussionist and mridangam artist B.C. Manjunath, violinist Mattur Srinidhi, G. Guruprasanna on kanjira, percussionist Pramath Kiran and – for the last part of her concert – harmonium player Praveen D. Rao and jazz pianist Vivek Santosh. “These are people who are close to me and it will be a small kind of journey.”

Very much a Nineties kid, Varijashree has gone on to perform with the best of both worlds in India and abroad as an artist – from Hariharan to Ricky Kej to Gino Banks, plus jazz great Victor Wooten and erstwhile German jazz-fusion act Max Clouth Clan, among others. She says, “Although I come out of that traditional school of Carnatic music, my musical course has taken a totally different direction.”

She began performing at the age of four and says she still has “sparse memories” about the way she interacted with music in her early childhood, definitely remembering her first concert. “My father really put in everything he had. Like how sugarcane juice is made, he squeezed and pushed until the last drop to get everything he could for me,” she says with a laugh. Among her earliest memories of learning music was developing a habit of writing notations while songs played at home or at concerts – from Hindustani classical to Carnatic to jazz-fusion act Shakti. “I think there was a different concoction happening inside my head at that time,” Varijashree says. From then on, she didn’t perceive music as having strict boundaries.

The other difference for the artist when she was younger was being fascinated with the concept of harmonies, even though Indian classical music is heavily melody-driven and has rhythms. “The only context of harmony in classical music is the tanpura. When I would listen to something which had a chordal movement, or harmony, I would be like, ‘Okay, what’s happening?’ I am not trained in western classical, but it’s all by hearing,” she says.

How did a free-thinking, boundary-less perception match with the somewhat rigid, guarded and traditional systems of Indian classical music? Varijashree acknowledges that the rules are what define a system and a classical art form. Theory came after practice, but it was in place to “protect the form.” She adds, “At the same time, the most beautiful part is that it has evolved over a period of time. How people would sing Carnatic music 200 years ago, if it is sung the same way today, maybe it is not the best way to enjoy that. So it was evolved and it’s getting finer with time.”

She follows it up with a simple statement of intent: “I’ve always wanted to fly. I want to go deeply into one form, but then after that I just wanted to do whatever is possible on an application level on this format.” That explains why Varijashree adapted John Coltrane or Chick Corea solos to vocals and cites the likes of Bobby McFerrin and Al Jarreau as influences right from her teens, making discoveries via YouTube. “Your voice is capable of doing all of this, if you treat it as an instrument. I started trying these things as an experiment to see what’s possible,” she adds.

It’s been difficult to hold on where she comes from as a musician. “It’s not easy but in a very good way. You need to have that anchor,” she says. There are times when jazz vocals might pop into her mind when she’s about to get on stage to perform a raaga like “Reetigowla,” but Varijashree laughs it off.

The other challenge along the way of diversifying and growing as an artist has been to show to the world that she’s as much a Carnatic artist as she is a film music composer, a fusion artist or anything else. “The more that you are present, you are seen and noticed. The more they see you doing various things, the first reaction will be, ‘She has moved to a different path.’ But that’s not true. You can branch out while being rooted,” the artist says.

In the midst of collaborations with Italian veteran Riccardo Nova as well as recent concerts with France’s EYM Trio, Varijashree is readying her debut album comprising original compositions, produced by multi-instrumentalist and producer Michael League (from fusion act Snarky Puppy). It’s always been on her mind and she met League in New York through common friends about eight years ago. “There was this album that I had in mind and he said, ‘Vari, let’s do it.’ We met a couple of times in New York to make demos and see where the tunes are going. And then COVID happened. So I got delayed quite a bit,” she says.

In addition to not just composing her own songs, Varijashree also began writing lyrics for the first time in Kannada and English for the album. It’s ready to go, but they’re presently looking out for a label to pick it up and get on with promotional work like music videos. “This album is about flow and flowing beyond boundaries. It’s about celebrating the very traditional sounds of Indian music, classical and folk but also going all out with how they’re presented,” she says of the record.