Carnatic violinist Shreya’s debut album is a personal melody

CHENNAI: Sitting in her room, which was painted in the colour of the skies, the ocean, and the seas, there was more to it. Every time a vehicle passed by outside the window on a sunny afternoon, a hazy white faint gleam would dance on the walls adding to it a different temporary life. It was in this blue room, in her childhood home, that Shreya Devnath created her music.

Shreya Devnath is an independent artist, music composer, and is also a Carnatic violinist. Being the student of legendary Carnatic violinist Sri Lalgudi Jayaram, it is but natural for Shreya to excel in her field. She has been part of several films as a solo violinist and has also recorded for the maestro AR Rahman himself.

Talking to DT Next about her new album, Songs from the Blue Room, she says, “In spite of being a Carnatic violinist, I have always been inclined to write my own music. I would just record a few rough bits and keep them on my phone. I never really took it any further. However, my partner Praveen Sparsh, who is a percussionist and also the producer of the album, felt that it needed to be out there.”

In 2020, Shreya teased short snippets of her compositions on her social media platform. “Only then I realised that I liked putting myself out there and Praveen suggested that I needed to compile this into an album. I began developing and working on each snippet into a full-fledged piece and also began writing completely new pieces as well.”

SFBR album artwork

Shreya says that the entire process was not intentional and was more circumstantial. “It wasn’t like today I’m going to make a song and I sat down to work on it. Each song happened at its own pace, trigger, and inspiration. Those touchpoints later led me to exploring it and envisioning it into something different and colourful from its raw and initial form.”

She adds that as and when she completed the songs, she took them to Praveen and would have him arrange the songs, along with the mixing and mastering. Parallelly, they also began working on the visuals of the song and got Ishani Sarkar, a Pondicherry-based cinematographer on board to shoot the music video.

Talking about the song Amma, which comes from a very personal space for Shreya, she says, “It was a very personal journey. A small snippet of the song was written for my mother’s birthday. After she was diagnosed with a serious illness, I began trying to work through the misery. That’s how the song slowly developed into what it is now today.”

She says that there were songs that did not make it to the album because of the aesthetic sense and the musical flow of the five songs in the album. Together the collection seemed cohesive and worked the best together.

The album Songs from the Blue Room which has five songs has the last two songs releasing this week and is available to stream on Spotify and YouTube.