Arun Varghese wears many caps as composer, sound designer, arranger, music producer, keyboardist, and mixing and mastering engineer. Last month when he performed in London on the seaboard as one of the six finalists of Roli Next Awards 2016, it was a moment of triumph for the youngster. The Awards celebrate the talents on the seaboard, a revolutionised piano keyboard founded by the London-based firm, Roli.
The 23-year-old was in Madurai, working on the sound design of a documentary shot by Bharat Bala when MetroPlus caught up with him over the phone. Obviously he is excited about the Roli awards. Getting selected as one of the six finalists of the Roli awards came as a bonanza for him.
“I was a last minute choice. I was not in the initial list and that was a little disappointing. On account of certain issues, they went for a new entry and that is when my song was selected. I had little time for the final rehearsal but, eventually, it was amazing,” he says.
A native of the capital city, Arun says that but for his family, he wouldn’t have gone thus far. “My mother, Santhi Varghese, a teacher and musician, made me learn Carnatic music and keyboard. My sister, Geethu Varghese, is a Bharatanatyam dancer and accompanying her to various performances exposed me to a different kind of music. I even set up a music room at home with a guitar, tabla, mridangam, keyboard, harmonium, violin and some percussion instruments and started composing.”
His mentor has been Thankaraj Chellapan sir, the arranger behind many evergreen Malayalam songs. Arun says his alma mater, Loyola School, gave him opportunities to showcase his talent.
“Later, I studied Western classical piano. My father, A. Varghese, is a great fan of Malayalam music and his hi-fi system was my first recording equipment. I remixed songs for my younger brother, Ajay Varghese, a dancer-actor, when he participated in reality shows,” adds Arun.
The breakthrough came when he got admission to A.R. Rahman’s KM College of Music and Technology (KMMC) in Chennai, that too in the second year of the course. “What came handy were the projects I did with my childhood friends and soulmates, Rithu Vysakh and Syamaprakash M.S. I went to KMMC with some of my works and had an impromptu audition. They let me be the first student to skip a year! The college shaped my ideas about music, sound and life. Training in composition and piano under Adam Grieg transformed me into a musician,” he believes.
In Chennai, he worked with many composers, one of them being Ouseppachan. In addition there were independent ventures such as advertisements, documentaries and short films.
Arun spread his wings and did his extension programme from Middlesex University, specialising in composition and film scoring. “The cosmopolitan environment brought about a total shift in my thoughts. It was an eventful year with a lot of compositions,” he says.
Once he came back, he was ready for a “multi-disciplined career”. It was at KMMC that he came to play the seaboard and performed as part of a seaboard ensemble in Chennai and Roli’s headquarters in London. Although not many composers have started using the seaboard, Arun says that it is slowly getting popular. “It is not a replacement for the traditional keyboard, rather it is an extension. Rahman sir has used it in some of his films. Composer duo of Salim-Sulaiman have been using it, so too some artistes who performed in Coke Studio ,” he says.
Having learnt the dictums of the film industry, Arun has clear ideas about sound design in films. “Even the creators tend to stereotype. With the soundscape around growing louder and louder everyday, they want the sounds to be seeking the attention of the audience. Therefore there is this constant pressure of making things loud and they tend to equate loudness and importance. Sadly, we miss out on a layer of subtle gestures,” he says.
Composing is his homeground. “Anything from within is a reflection of what was fed in. So location recordings and filmmaking sessions are more of a listening time, and then as I am back to the workplace, the compositional ideas mature. I try to find a balance between both listening and producing.”
His latest/upcoming works include a Malayalam film Oraazhcha , a music album with London-based Carnatic violinist Jyotsana Srikanth, a Hollywood project, and Masala Coffee’s new music video. And, of course, he is working on his solo album.
