My Story

I I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and grew up in an artistic family – where Karnatik music (South Indian classical) became the first language I knew and the medium through which I negotiated the multitude of sounds in my American environment.

Today I celebrate my rich cultural heritage, but this wasn’t the case as I was growing up in L.A., fearful of being too different. As a child and adolescent I wanted to feel included, not different from everyone else, and because of that I kept my music and Indian cultural identity separate from my American persona.

My friends in school had no idea that I was seriously pursuing music. They assumed that my summer and winter vacations in India were spent visiting my family — but in truth I was in Chennai, most times alone and away from friends and family, training with esteemed gurus and performing in the professional Karnatik music circuit, starting at the age of 12. However, I never thought of myself as a “serious” musician at that age.

All things changed when maestro Ravi Shankar heard about a talented 15-year-old Carnatic singer in L.A. and invited me to perform a 30-minute set at his home in nearby Encinitas. I had no idea that this would be my audition — to be accepted to tour with him. What started as a half-hour showcase became a two-hour concert as he requested more songs and ragas, making me feel comfortable and at ease singing and improvising — and forgetting that I was performing for a legend and the other esteemed invitees. Months later I received a call from Ravi Shankar himself, asking if I would like to join him on an extensive tour of the USA and Canada from 2005-2006. Can you imagine the surprise of my friends, who went from vaguely knowing that I sang to discovering that I was performing at Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall and The Hollywood Bowl?

I took several months off during my senior year of high school to tour with Ravi Shankar (trying to keep up with my classmates, studying textbooks on my own, getting tutoring sessions via Skype, even taking my SAT exams at a random high school in New York on the morning of our Carnegie Hall performance!).

After the tour, I returned to school with a new outlook and confidence and this quite literally opened up my voice. Without any Western music training or theater experience, I tried out for the lead role in my high school musical – Beauty and the Beast – and, before I knew it, I was singing and acting as the Beast, much to everyone’s surprise (including mine). I was no longer so shy about my different voice and my heritage. I even did a presentation introducing my high school choir and friends to the basics of Indian classical music!

Working with Ravi Shankar opened up my musical palette and gave me the opportunity to work with artists in genres seemingly unrelated to Karantik music – for instance I spent a month creating music with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist, Andy Summers (The Police).

I had two very important conversations with the master, which began to shape my journey to where it is now:

The first was toward the end of my first tour with him in 2005, when I had just been accepted at UCLA. I shared the news with him and asked what I should do – should music be a hobby while I pursue another profession? I was seeking his advice because music was just a dream for me, not a reality. To be honest, I didn’t fully believe in myself, and I wasn’t yet convinced that I had it in me to be a professional, full-time musician. Raviji advised me to skip college, to commit myself completely to music and build my career as a serious musician. He told me that I had the talent and the drive — and a special voice, with a strong grounding. To get this reaffirmation from such a legend when I was 16 was critical, because he was an icon who not only delved deep in his craft and found a way to make it accessible beyond his own community with his ground-breaking cross-cultural collaborations and inventive approach. This was precisely what I aspired to do with my own music, and while I did decide upon college, it was ethnomusicology and music that I pursued.

My four years at UCLA’s esteemed ethnomusicology department were pivotal in exposing me to jazz, western music and many other beautiful styles of music from around the world.

It expanded my understanding of culture and music and also helped me envision a space where Indian music correlates and dialogues with other traditions, and especially with my American context. UCLA is also where I met my closest friends and began the Aditya Prakash Ensemble – an endeavor sparked by pure curiosity and excitement in exploring that space where seemingly disparate traditions of music can coexist without diluting the essence of each form.

After graduating college and finishing Aditya Prakash Ensemble’s first self-released album, The Hidden, in 2012, I drove back to Encinitas to Raviji’s residence to play the record for him and get his blessings. This is where we had the second important conversation. He listened to the full album, keeping tal (the rhythmic time cycle), and shaking his head, enjoying it all the while. After listening he said he appreciated the effort to fuse my Karnatik voice with what I had imbibed from jazz and other styles that inspired me. But he reminded me that, although this experimentation is exciting, fun and imperative, we must always stay closely connected to the roots. “Don’t ever compromise on that,” he said. His words ring in my head to this day, and they remain the driving force behind my music now.

A As I continued on my journey, there was a period where I felt I lost a sense of direction in my music and this is where the mentorship of the prolific musicians R.K. Shriramkumar and T.M. Krishna drove me back in the direction I needed to go. These two artists reset my focus and set ablaze a passion to go deeper in Karnatik music. T.M. Krishna’s literary works, A Southern Music and Sebastian and Sons, were pivotal in my search to go deeper in the form.

Another turning point in my career was meeting the celebrated choreographer and contemporary dancer, Akram Khan, while I was on tour in India with Aditya Prakash Ensemble. Akram invited me to be the vocalist and collaborator in his final solo – XENOS, which toured internationally from 2018 till 2023 (finishing in Mumbai in June 2023). The process of working with Akram Khan sparked a search in me to find a more authentic voice, to question my musical habituation and to decolonize my musical choices. This was one of the propelling factors that led me to create my latest album, ISOLASHUN.