“‘Ah, music,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘A magic beyond all we do here!’”
Sruti Sarathy is a leading Carnatic musician in the diaspora. She is a versatile violinist, singer, and composer with roots in the South Indian classical tradition. Her original music is a meeting place for Carnatic and Hindustani forms, spoken word, South Asian diasporic experience, literature in many Indian and Western languages, and theater. Her style and sound bring out the voice of the Indian violin in a contemporary and imaginative way.
Her groundbreaking experiments with the Carnatic form and the role of the violin in Carnatic music have been supported by several institutions. She received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2016 from the US Department of State to study cross-genre approaches in Carnatic violin. She is also the recipient of grants from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (2007) and the Creative Work Fund (2021). In “Songs for Many Lives,” supported by CWF, Sruti partners with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action to create new Carnatic music about South Asian diasporic life.
Sruti began her musical training as a prodigious three-year old under Anuradha Sridhar, a sixth-generation violinist from the Lalgudi lineage of musicians. Sruti has also studied Hindustani music under maestro Kala Ramnath.
Sruti’s original compositions reach out to new contexts via Indian classical forms. She composes for small instrumental ensembles as well as for voice. Sruti’s original compositions offer scope for improvisation within and beyond the raga framework. Her compositions draw from South Asian diasporic life and history, reflect minority South Asian identities, and address contemporary political priorities. Carnatic Crossings is her new band, formed with the intention of creating a space for exploring a uniquely diasporic sound. Her experience as a composer and master improviser informs the vision for the band’s new repertoire.
Sruti collaborates with several leading Carnatic musicians, performing dozens of concerts a year internationally, and she has received accolades both in India and in the United States for her artistry, including the “Best Violinist” award from the prestigious Madras Music Academy in 2019 and 2020. She often takes the role of composer-performer for dance and theater works. She has composed several original scores for Bay Area Drama Company. Sruti regularly collaborates with musicians from diverse traditions. Past collaborators include Jeronimo Maya (flamenco guitar), Oliver Rajamani (Romani gypsy music), Shayok Misha Chowdhury (theater), Roopa Mahadevan (Carnatic/crossover), Aditya Prakash (Carnatic/crossover), Rajna Swaminathan (Indian/jazz percussion), Bruce Mui Ghent (Taiko), among others. She has been featured in the San Francisco and Chicago World Music Festivals, the San Francisco World Percussion Arts Festival, the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and the Drive East Festival in New York City. She has performed at major venues throughout India, including the Music Academy (Chennai), Shanmukhananda Sabha (Mumbai), and the Indira Gandhi National Center for Performing Arts (Delhi).
Sruti is a graduate of Stanford University, where she studied French literature.
