Priya Darshini’s artistic journey is rooted in deep listening. Trained within the discipline of Hindustani music while growing up surrounded by musical traditions from across the world, she developed an early sensitivity not just to sound, but to intention, purpose, and even silence. Though her work traverses genres, she is less concerned with categories and more invested in creating with sincerity and care.
For Priya, collaboration is both a responsibility and a practice in humility. She approaches it with a sense of surrender, constantly learning to honor the collective process while remaining attentive to every detail often with a rigor she admits can verge on exacting.

Beyond music, long-distance running has shaped her perspective, teaching her to embrace discomfort as a space for inquiry and growth. She believes art, like life, requires time to unfold to breathe, gather meaning, and hold the truths of the moment. At the same time, her work in wildlife coexistence has sharpened her awareness of urgency. Witnessing the pressures faced by natural ecosystems has deepened her understanding of consequence and responsibility. Much like the natural world itself, Priya believes art must be approached with care and reverence because what we create, inevitably, carries weight.

1. How do you seamlessly balance the diverse roles of an actor, educator, vocal coach, and social worker, while maintaining excellence in each?

I’m not sure it’s seamless. Most days it feels more like a conversation between different parts of my life. But I don’t experience these things as separate roles. They all come from the same place in me, a deep curiosity about people, about the human voice, about how we care for one another and the world around us. Whether I’m performing, teaching, coaching someone’s voice, or working in communities or with wildlife, the work is really about listening. Listening carefully enough allows for something honest to emerge.

In a way, each path keeps the others honest. Performance becomes the place where all of that living and listening can find expression. I try to be fully present in whatever I’m doing at that moment. Excellence, to me, isn’t really about doing many things at once. It’s about showing up with care and integrity wherever you are, and continuing to learn as you go. Which is a lifelong practice.

2. Born in Chennai, raised in Mumbai, and later relocating to New York – how have these transitions shaped your worldview as you grew up?

I was born into a Tamil family, but I grew up in Mumbai. Which meant living inside a very particular cultural intersection. There’s almost a micro-culture of Tamilians in Mumbai, families who carried language, music, food, and philosophy from the South, while also being deeply shaped by the pace and pluralism of the city. You grow up moving between worlds without really thinking about it.

Even though I grew up in Mumbai, Tamil language, food, philosophy, and music were always present in our home, and that cultural grounding has always been a quiet constant in my life. Mumbai itself shaped me deeply. It’s a city where many worlds exist side by side, different languages, cultures, and realities unfolding all at once. Growing up there stretches you. It asks you to stay open, to listen, to adapt. In many ways it prepared me to live almost anywhere in the world. I’ll always carry Mumbai with me.

When I later moved to New York, I recognized that same multiplicity again, just on a global scale. The city is full of people carrying stories and migrations from everywhere. Living between these places made me more aware that identity isn’t something static. It keeps evolving as we inhabit new landscapes. Distance also has a way of clarifying what you carry with you. Music has remained one of my deepest anchors, especially the way listening, discipline, and lineage are understood within Indian traditions. And then there are the quieter things: language, food, family, friends, the village and community that held you on your journey, the thousand memories… These things travel with you. There’s a beautiful idea in the Tirukkural that has stayed with me. It suggests that wisdom isn’t about accumulation. Knowledge only becomes real when it shapes the way you live in the world.

3. Starting your musical journey at just four years old is remarkable. Who first inspired you to step into the world of music?

Starting music at four wasn’t really a decision I made. It was simply the world I was born into. My mother and my maternal grandmother were my first and deepest influences. My grandmother was a student of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. She was an extraordinary musician and singer, but even more than that, she was an extraordinary human being. Music lived very naturally in her life. I grew up hearing her sing constantly, practicing, teaching, moving through the day with music around her. Over the course of her life she taught hundreds of students, and she taught anyone who came with the desire to learn. Quite often she refused payment because she felt money should never stand in the way of someone learning music.

Even after she stepped away from performing professionally, her artistry was present in everything she did. It was in the way she spoke to people, the way she cooked, the care with which she plated food. There was a kind of attentiveness and beauty in the smallest gestures. She had a deep love for people, and for life itself. My mother made sure I grew up inside that atmosphere. In our home, music was never separate from the way you lived in the world. It was simply part of how you learned to listen, to care, and to show up for others.

4. How do you blend the rich heritage of Indian classical traditions with global influences?

I don’t really experience it as blending in a deliberate way. I grew up inside the discipline and philosophy of Hindustani music educationally, and Carnatic music culturally, so that way of listening and thinking about sound has always been part of how I approach music. At the same time, I also grew up listening widely, from folk, jazz, rock, and pop to electronic music, and to musical traditions from many parts of the world, from Egyptian classical music to the rich musical lineages of Mali and West Africa.

As I began to travel, and later after spending time in Nashville, and living in New York, that musical world expanded even further. I had the great privilege of immersing myself in many more traditions, learning from and playing alongside masters of their craft. When you listen that deeply, when you sit with people who have spent their lives inside a musical tradition, it inevitably changes you. How could it not? So for me, it’s less about blending traditions and more about listening deeply. If you listen long enough, the music begins to show you where it belongs in your own art.

5. Could you share an insight into your debut album Periphery – its creation, inspiration, and the journey behind it?

Periphery really emerged from a long period of thinking about belonging. I had spent many years moving between cultures and geographies, and I often found myself reflecting on what it means to live at the edges of different worlds. The word periphery captured that feeling for me. Not necessarily as a place of exclusion, but as a place of observation. When you’re slightly outside the center, you often see things more clearly. The album was also about vulnerability and presence. We recorded the entire project live in a vacant church in Brooklyn, with the musicians gathered around a single microphone, each piece captured in one take. There was something very honest about that process. You couldn’t hide behind editing or perfection. The room, the breath, the silences, the imperfections, they were all part of the music.

For me, the album became a way of asking deeper questions about identity, migration, and the search for stillness in a world that often feels fragmented. When you live between worlds long enough, you begin to question what “home” really means. In the end, what emerged was the realization that home is not necessarily something external. Sometimes it’s something you arrive at within yourself.

6. How does it feel to have your work honored on the world’s biggest stage with a Best New Age Album nomination at the 63rd GRAMMY® Awards?

It was honestly a very surreal moment. On one level it felt deeply humbling and validating, especially for a debut album that was such an intimate and vulnerable project. At the same time, it was also quite complex emotionally. A part of me wondered why external recognition suddenly made something feel more “real,” and whether I even needed that validation in the first place.

There was also a bit of disbelief. You grow up feeling like things like this don’t really happen to people like me, so when it did, it took a moment to absorb. And yet, there was also a strange sense of detachment. Awards are meaningful, but they can’t really define the creative process. The work itself has to come from a much quieter, more internal place. If anything, the nomination reminded me to keep trusting that process and to stay focused on the music itself rather than the outcome.

7. What has your experience been like collaborating with artists like Victor Wooten, Roy Futureman Wooten, Pearl Jam, Karsh Kale, Jake Shimabukuro, and Edmar Castañeda and how have these cross-genre collaborations shaped your understanding of artistic dialogue at the highest level?

Working with such masters has been an extraordinary education. What becomes clear very quickly is that at the highest level, great musicians are really great listeners. They carry deep mastery of their own traditions, but they also arrive with humility and curiosity. There’s a generosity in the room, a willingness to respond to what’s happening in the moment rather than impose something on it. It has taught me that artistic dialogue isn’t really about genre at all. It’s about presence, trust, and listening deeply enough to allow something new to emerge between people. When you’re in the room with musicians like that, it really becomes a practice of receiving, and giving. And those conversations are often where the most beautiful and unexpected moments happen.

8. As a member of the Board of Directors for the International Wildlife Coexistence Network, what is your vision for the organization’s future impact, and what key goals do you hope it will achieve?

Being part of the Board of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network has been deeply meaningful to me because the work is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: that humans and wildlife must learn to share this planet in more thoughtful and compassionate ways. As human expansion continues, conflicts with wildlife are increasing and inevitable, but across the world, communities are also demonstrating that coexistence is possible when people have access to the right knowledge, tools, and support.

My hope for the future is that the idea of coexistence becomes less of a niche conversation and more of a cultural shift. The next generation must inherit not only a sense of responsibility toward the natural world, but also the practical tools and imagination to carry this work forward. Ultimately, coexistence is not only about protecting wildlife. It’s about remembering that we are part of the same living systems. And learning, again, how to listen to the world around us.

“My musical practice resists urgency and spectacle, as best I can. It is grounded in listening and in creating with care and responsibility.” -Priya Darshini

9. Can you share how Jana Rakshita has progressed and what key insights or lessons you’ve gained from the experience? 

Jana Rakshita Charitable Trust has really grown alongside my own life. My parents formally started the organization in 2004, but the spirit of the work began long before that. Supporting families through illness, helping children access treatment and education, these things were simply part of how I grew up. It was never separate from family life. Over the years the work has expanded to support thousands of pediatric cancer patients who have, in many ways, become family to us. We continue to build educational opportunities as well, especially for girls who often face the greatest barriers.

Some of the deepest lessons I’ve learned have come directly from the patients themselves. Being with a child as they move on from this life is one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know that anyone ever fully learns how to hold that. There have been moments when a family, or sometimes the child themselves, has asked me to sit with them, to hold their hand, simply to be present.The trust in those moments is extraordinary. In many ways, I’m still trying to make sense of it all. But I do know that it has fundamentally changed who I am, and the way I move through this world and relate to life itself.

I’ve also learned a great deal about privilege. When you see children receiving an education they fought so hard to access, you notice the seriousness and gratitude with which they approach every bit of knowledge. They don’t take it for granted. It’s incredibly moving. At the same time, you see how unfair the systems around them can be, sometimes deeply challenging, sometimes even corrupt. But alongside that, you also witness extraordinary people, doctors, nurses, volunteers, quietly and selflessly showing up for these families every single day. In many ways, these experiences have moved me beyond words. I’m still trying to understand it. Some parts of that work feel sacred. Perhaps that’s why I rarely speak about it at length. 

10. With multiple roles and concerts, how do you carve out time for yourself and stay grounded amidst such a demanding schedule?

I’m not sure I always succeed at it, to be honest. In fact, I’m quite certain I don’t. I’ve fallen apart and put myself back together more times than I can remember. There are periods where the work and travel can feel very full. Over time I’ve realized that staying grounded isn’t necessarily about finding large blocks of time away from everything. It’s more about small practices that bring you back to yourself, and about finding meaning in simple things. For me that often comes through music itself, through quiet moments, through being in nature, and through the people who keep me connected to what really matters.

Motherhood has also changed my relationship to time in a profound way. Children have a way of pulling you very firmly into the present moment. And I’ve come to understand that grounding isn’t really about stepping away from life. It’s about learning how to move through it with a little more awareness, and a little more humility.

11. Could you share the story behind ‘Windchasers’ and what inspired you to bring this vision to life?

WindChasers really came from a very personal place. Ultra running had already become a kind of practice for me. A way of being in nature, of pushing past the edges of what I thought was possible, and sometimes finding a strange stillness on the other side of that effort. The Himalayas have always felt like one of the most powerful places on earth to me, so creating something that allowed me to be there, doing something I loved, felt very natural.

Together with my running partner, Ram Sethu, we began imagining The WindChasers as something more than just a race. Part of the spark came from running a 100-mile race in the Himalayas that seemed reluctant to accept Indian participants. They made an exception for me because Ram registered me under his entry as a U.S. citizen. That race was one of the most life-changing experiences for me. So, in some ways, The WindChasers began as our attempt to create something more open and inclusive, so others in India could experience this too. But over time it grew into something much bigger than that.

We wanted to create a space where runners could come and attempt their own impossible, and where people could connect with the mountains in a deeper way. It was also important for us to support the Sherpa communities, who are the true backbone and caretakers of those mountains. Their knowledge and relationship with that landscape is extraordinary, and we wanted the race to contribute meaningfully to the communities that make these journeys possible. At the same time, the Himalayan ranges are under enormous environmental pressure. We felt that if people came into those mountains through running, through effort, through humility, they might also begin to understand how fragile those ecosystems are, and why they need protecting.

And then there’s the experience of ultra running itself. There’s always a moment in a long race when everything breaks down. Your body hurts, your mind rebels, everything in you wants to stop. And somehow you keep moving. At a certain point the struggle softens, and something shifts. You’re no longer fighting the mountain. You’re just moving through it. And in those moments you realize something very simple: the mountain was never something to conquer. It’s something that teaches you how small you are, and how connected you are to everything around you.

12. Society often applauds women for ‘effortlessly’ balancing multiple roles. Do you view this as a true compliment, or does it mask unrealistic expectations? How do you personally manage these diverse responsibilities?

I’ve always had a slightly complicated relationship with that idea. On the surface it sounds like a compliment, but the word effortless can sometimes hide the amount of labor, emotional, physical, and mental, that women are constantly carrying. Most women I know are not doing this effortlessly. They’re doing it through commitment, resilience, and often very little societal and structural support. And sometimes it can also be quite isolating. The idea of “effortless balance” can quietly turn into another expectation women are asked to live up to.

In my own life, I certainly don’t experience it as effortless. There have been many moments of questioning, recalibrating, and starting again. Some periods feel expansive and creative, and others require a lot more endurance and patience. What I’ve taken this to mean is that balance isn’t really a static state you arrive at. It’s something you keep renegotiating as life changes. In the end, it’s less about “balancing everything perfectly” and more about moving through life with awareness, humility, flexibility, and a willingness to keep learning as you go.

13. Who has been the most transformative woman in your life, and why?

My mother, without question.

She is one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known. Life has placed many challenges in front of her, and I’ve watched her meet each one with a kind of quiet strength that has shaped how I understand resilience. She raised my sister and me largely on her own while my father’s work required him to live away from us for many years. He was always deeply present in our lives in every other way, but much of the day-to-day responsibility fell on her, and she carried it with extraordinary grace and determination.

The work of Jana Rakshita Charitable Trust really comes from her heart. Long before the organization formally existed, she was already deeply involved in supporting children facing cancer and families in need. That spirit of care eventually grew into Jana Rakshita. Growing up around that shaped the way I see the world. It taught me that compassion isn’t an abstract idea. It’s something you practice every day, often quietly, and often without recognition. If there is anything in my life that reflects care for others, it almost certainly traces back to her.

14. What message would you like to share with young women who aspire to make a remarkable impact across diverse fields?

I’m always a little cautious about giving advice, because every life unfolds differently. Over time, I’ve come to believe that the world doesn’t need you to become someone else in order to succeed. It needs the clarity and integrity of who you already are.  At the same time, we have to be honest about the world we live in. Many systems were not built with women in mind. So part of the work is learning how to move through those structures without losing yourself in the process.

So my encouragement would be to stay curious, stay open, and resist the pressure to define yourself too narrowly. Some of the most meaningful things in life happen at the intersections between disciplines, ideas, and ways of seeing the world. At the same time, cultivate depth. Whatever you care about, study it seriously. Give it your time, your attention, your patience.

Impact isn’t always measured by visibility or recognition. Often the most important work happens quietly, in the ways we care for others, in the communities we build, and in the integrity with which we move through the world