Classic Crossover

BENGALURU: Carnatic music gets a new-age twist in Apoorva Krishna’s new album.The city-based violinist has now released her first Carnatic fusion album, Intuition, at the age of 25. The graduate from Berklee College of Music, Valencia, says, “After releasing my first album Apoorva Thillanas in 2018, I became active in Carnatic music. I then joined Berklee Valencia and got exposed to different genres of music from all over the world.” This resulted in the eight new tracks, which combine Carnatic music with a Western flavour, featuring musical instruments like harp, percussions, electric bass, double bass, trombone and drums. 

Of these, the track Ragamaya, which features singer Shankar Mahadevan in the video, carries an interesting backstory. Krishna composed Bahudari, an original Carnatic composition and submitted it to the London Tarisio Young Artist Grant event in 2017. She bagged the first place and received a grant of $5000, which then helped her produce Ragamaya in 2018.

“I also used the grant money to conduct an outreach program in Coimbatore and Bengaluru, among other cities, to drive home the importance of Indian classical music. My fellow musical artistes, Vinod Shyam, Sunaad Anoor and I, conducted workshops to educate people in rural areas about Carnatic music and its classical culture.” 

Some of the other tracks on the album are called Transcend, Blossom and Merging Parallels. Krishna believes Intuition was born as an outcome of the situations and circumstances she dealt with while composing different tracks. Each of the tracks on the 48-minute album has a different vibe and captures different parts of her musical journey. “The musical fusions in Intuition is a series of compositions that I composed and released from 2018 to 2021.

Transcend and Blossom Valencia, among others, were composed during my two-year Masters in Berklee Valencia. My idea is to take these compositions to different parts of the world and have them experience Indian classical music.” Speaking about her upcoming works, Krishna says, “I live and breathe music. As of now I am open to performances, compositions and expand my inclination towards Indian classical music.”