For Varijashree Venugopal, travel is a great teacher

The Grammy-nominated musician talks about her 'fluid' workspaces and why she loves collecting handmade notebooks

- Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran

To call Varijashree Venugopal, 35, "multifaceted" feels like compressing a wide canvas into a tiny capsule.

A child prodigy who started performing when she was four, the Bengalurean is today a flautist, singer, music composer and a serial collaborator who's worked with eminent musicians like Rajesh Vaidya, Herbie Hancock, Bobby McFerrin and Michael League. In 2024, she was nominated along with Jacob Collier and Anoushka Shankar for the Grammy for Best Global Music Performance for the track A Rock Somewhere, featured on the album Djesse Vol. 4. She is also attributed as the creator of "Carnatic Scat" singing, a vocal style that blends carnatic singing with jazz. “As a musician I am a lot into improvisation and experimentation and it applies across projects and collaborations. I am constantly drawing inspiration from my collaborators, my co-artists on stage, off stage, during rehearsals or even a residency. Not only does this help me churn out something new every day, it also expands my mind without any limitation,” she tells Mint over a telephone interview before getting into her creative process to make music. Edited excerpts: