Varun Rangaswamy is an improviser, composer, scholar, bassoonist, and Karnāṭak vocalist. Their self-reflexive debut album REINHERITANCE has been praised for “creating a mesmerizing circular dialect” (I Care If You Listen). As a multifaceted artist, he has performed with such ensembles as International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and Mivos Quartet in varying capacaties as performer and/or composer. Collaborators have included Aakash Mittal, Fay Victor, Rebekah Heller, Sara Schoenbeck, and Jasmine Wilson. Varun’s work, which has been performed across North America and Europe, explores multiple identities within a single body. He engages with the instability of cultural processes—like the formation and reconfiguration of identity—by experimenting with technical convention and relocating the body in musical action.

Varun helped conceive and establish the San Diego Emerging Composers Concert, in which he has participated as composer, performer, and recruiter. This annual concert series gives performance opportunities to young composers based in the San Diego/Ensenada/Tijuana area. Additionally, he has served as a board member for San Diego New Music, an organization dedicated to performances and commissions of well-known, contemporary composers and emerging ones.

Varun was originally trained in Karnāṭak music. He has studied vocal performance with B. Balasubrahmaniam and mridanga performance with Rajna Swaminathan. Varun has earned an M.A. from UC San Diego and a B.M. from the Eastman School of Music, both in composition. He is currently a master’s student at the Hochschule für Musik Basel. Present and former mentors include Johannes Kreidler, Sara Glojnaric, Johannes Casper Walter, Michel Roth, Anaar Desai-Stephens, Marcos Balter, Chinary Ung, Anthony Davis, King Britt, Fay Victor, Chaya Czernowin, Robert Morris, Matthew Barber, David Liptak, Katharina Rosenberger, and Lei Liang.