From Blues to Bollywood

Acclaimed violinist Jyotsna Srikanth will be bringing her Bangalore Dreams to Watts in Cupar on November 18 – the first time she’s ever performed at a blues club.

The daughter of a respected singer of Indian music, Jyotsna began playing the violin at the age of just five and made her concert debut at the age of nine.

In her mid-teens, she began studying Western techniques at Bangalore School of Music, going on to gain her grades from the Royal School of Music in London.

She then trained as a pathologist and before moving to the UK in 2004, she combined this career with a CV in music that includes 250 Bollywood film soundtracks and innumerable concerts.

Today she is regarded as the leading Indian violinist in Europe and when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the UK in 2015 she was asked to perform her Indian Spring suite with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for him in front of an audience of 60,000 at Wembley Stadium.

With Bangalore Dreams she’ll be playing at the much more intimate function room in Watts and combining her Carnatic techniques and expression with jazz and rock rhythms.

“I’m looking forward to playing in Cupar,” she says.

“I’ve played all over the world and in all kinds of places from film studios to football stadia but I’ve never played for a blues club before - and it’s really exciting.”