Sangeetha Ramanuj

Sangeetha’ interdisciplinary interests stem from her love for problem solving and analysis, and her passion for the arts. Currently a John F. Oberlin scholar pursuing a musical studies and mathematics double major with an integrative concentration in data science at Oberlin College and Conservatory, Ohio, she has developed a self-motivated and goal-oriented attitude, alongside a lifelong love and commitment to music.

She has been training in the Indian Carnatic violin for the past 15 years under her Guru, and world-renowned violinist Dr. Ambi Subramaniam in the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts (SaPa), India. She won third place at the Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana’s “kriti” competition in 2023, and has performed at the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival as part of an ensemble. Through Sapa and under the guidance of singer and songwriter Dr. Bindu Subramaniam, she has been able to write original songs, and debuted her first release “Fly By” to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals campaign with UNICEF. She has also been featured in newspapers like The Times of India, Economic Times, and the Bangalore Mirror for the “Solar System Song” being used in elementary schools by over 30,000 students today. She has also been a music instructor at SaPa for the past 4 years.

Sangeetha is deeply passionate about exploring new styles of music, in order to amalgamate elements of those styles into her own pieces. At Oberlin, she has had the opportunity to work and perform with percussionist Jamey Haddad, in the Performance and Improvisation (PI) jazz ensemble. She has collaborated with jazz artists from all over the world like Louis Perdomo, Camila Meza, Chico Pinheiro, and Edmar Castaneda. Under Jamey, she has trained in incorporating rhythms from all over the world in her music. She also trains in the Western Classical Violin under violinist Jonathan Ong, from the Verona Quartet as well as the Fiddle under Edwin Huizinga. Over her winter term, she won the Flint Initiative Grant (FIGs) to travel to Boston and work with violinist Julia Connor to learn about the East Clare Irish Fiddle. She has fallen in love with folk music ever since and pursued that winter term to curate a database of South Indian Folk Tunes and transcribe them for folk musicians worldwide.

Sangeetha is also very passionate about music composition and production. She has composed various songs fusing different genres of music. For instance, “Coalescence” encompasses a conversation between the Indian Carnatic Violin and the East Clare Irish Fiddle. She is a spotify artist with over 300,000 total listeners and over 1 million total streams. Adept at live electro-acoustic performance, she has collaborated with the music technology (TIMARA) department at the Oberlin Conservatory to perform her composition, “Quest to Nirvana” at the Hotel at Oberlin. Sangeetha aspires to be an independent artist, violinist, and singer/songwriter in the future, and building a brand on various music distribution platforms.