Hyderabad | Sri Soumya Varanasi’s classical music concerts have a contemporary touch

Hyderabad musician Soumya Varanasi blends classical and contemporary music. Through workshops at offbeat venues, she reaches out to a new audience and inspires them.

Hyderabad-based singer, songwriter and composer Sri Soumya Varanasi hosts a workshop on classical music at unusual venues, seeing it as an opportunity to present different dimensions of music to a new audience. Soumya, who performs classical music with a contemporary touch, has a busy month: conducting a music workshop for SoMa’s M&MS (Music and Mind Series) at The Moonshine Project in Jubilee Hills (September 21), and presenting a second episode of The Kutcheri Project by SoMa (September 29) at The Stage in District 150, Madhapur.

Soumya was 12 when she felt a connection with music. Over time, this ‘small rooted thought’ led her to learn and to contribute to the art. Even while singing the same song at different concerts, she would reflect on its presentation and consider what new perspective she could add to it. Having trained formally in Carnatic music in her childhood, the musician also forayed into light music, Western and Hindustani music and film songs.

Viewing music as an entity that she would prefer not to put a tag or label on, she has learned to take positives from different genres and bring out the best in her performances. ”I’ve been fortunate that all my gurus have seen music that way,” says Soumya, presently a disciple of eminent musician Bombay Jayashri.

The versatile musician-guru established a music school, Dhruvam, in 2016 , She was pleasantly surprised to discover that children grasp and perceive music in the very first session and understand it once they form a bond with it. “From feeling bored to asking questions like ‘Are these two songs of the same ragam?’ created a thought process within me,” she recollects. That was her inspiration to do something more than teaching. “Maybe it could inspire one person who has a different opinion on Indian classical music, not just Carnatic music, because I have personally benefited so much from it.”

With the launch of Dhruvam, a thematic concept in 2019, she collaborated with various musicians to perform classical music with a touch of fusion and also did harmonies and a cappella with her students.

Having assisted composer MM Keeravani (in Baahubali and RRR) and with S S Thaman for background music in a couple of movies where there is traditional music involved — like ‘maguva maguva’ in Vakeel Saab — people request her to sing a couple of film songs during concerts. “I tell them, ‘I am not against film songs. I will do something else, listen and give me feedback,”’ recalls Sowmya who sang the ghazal ‘Aaj Jane Ki Zid Na Karo’ during a concert.

Some of her thematic fusion acts have featured the kriti ‘Bho Shambo, Shiva Shambo’ in a jugalbandi with percussionists Pavan Kumarand Ramakrishna, as well as the traditional stotram ‘Aigiri Nandini’ being presented with harmonies and a few English lyrics on empowering women.