Overview
Varun is a composer and researcher whose work engages theories of history, with a particular focus on the capacity of musical practice to facilitate historical redress, especially as articulated within Black critical thought. His approach to music-making is deeply informed by Saidiya Hartman’s practice of critical fabulation, a speculative mode of narration that confronts the violences of archival erasure. His research examines how sound can engage archival traces that resist recovery, attending to the uneven ways histories of colonial encounter are transmitted.
Drawing on composition, improvisation, and critical listening, he works across diverse forms of musical practice and sound scholarship to develop methods for reckoning with the limits of historical knowledge. He holds degrees in music composition from the Eastman School of Music and the University of California, San Diego, as well as an M.A. in Music and Research from the Hochschule für Musik Basel. He is currently a doctoral student in Music and Sound Studies at Cornell University.