Name: Victoria Wijeratne
Occupation: Composer
Nationality: British-Sri Lankan
Current release: Victoria Wijeratne's Graces & Muses is out via Dragon’s Eye.
Recommendations: Helios – Eingya: stunning ambient album that is really ahead of its time  
James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (book): such a beautiful lyrical read, and a classic within gay literature.   

If you enjoyed this Victoria Wijeratne interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started my music making journey at 16. As well as drawing and painting, my earliest passions have always been music, especially singing. Ever since I was 9 I started singing a lot of songs from the likes of Mariah Carey, which my siblings always made me sing as mini concerts to their friends.

Growing up I was influenced by a mixture of RnB, Soul, Hip Hop and Grunge Rock, Alternative Indie, Folk, Heavy Rock due to having two older sisters with completely different music tastes. So I was naturally inspired by both and tuned in to that hybridity earlier on.

For me, what drew me to music was the universality of the voice, it was first the tone of the singer and those that have a raw natural talent of it. Then, when I started producing my own music at 16, it was the ability to carve your own voice and identity and your own worlds that really drew me in to music producing / writing / playing a lot more passionately

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

Listening to music for me is a reflection of our current state of mind. What we can’t say or express directly is reflected back to us in the music we listen and connect to. When I listen to music, it’s about the expression of emotion, and drawing in to your higher power, your subconsciousness. Music helps me understand that unspoken language you have inside which you can’t articulate in day-to-day life. I’ve always found listening to music for me is incredibly healing in so many ways.

And in that healing, that state of meditativeness, it helps me to open up more in my approach to creativity, to not be afraid to try out new techniques and to always work towards fostering and cultivating my creative ideas with care and honesty.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

In terms of the challenges towards my development as an artist, it’s the access to opportunities for growth, or lack of, and how much social standing and social mobility you have.

I come from a working-class background and started with no connections to the creative industries in the UK, and no formal training, so I’ve worked my way up, and I’m proud to have stuck to my own intuitive way of creating, even though it has been a struggle to keep going with that lack of access and money to begin with.

My interests have always been about the DIY aesthetic when it comes to my development, to find your own ways of creating and going away from the status quo. Seeking out that DIY ethos of making music especially for me has put me on a path of crafting my own personal voice and creative independence.

It has helped me continue to build my confidence along the way which is one of the breakthroughs for me as an artist: to never shy away from finding my own sound.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Me being a Mixed Sri Lankan, Queer Lesbian, has always pushed me in to otherness, which as a listener has naturally made me want to seek out music that speaks to that outsider energy, who push the boundaries in music but with softness and pure compassion and love.

My sense of identity has and will always influence my creativity, as I like to play with subtext, multilayers of instruments / textures- understated tensions within music, this to me has been a way to resonate with my intersectional identity as a queer woman of colour and my various lived experiences.

It influences me to use my otherness as a power within my creativity.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

The key idea for me behind my approach to music and art is the journey of the soul. It’s to invoke emotions and memories, and exploring the intertwining of the two.

Meditativeness is also an idea in my music that I’ve wanted to push more, the subtle act of repetition to create formations that are healing and soothing to listen to.

I’m also big on minimalism within music, as I believe it gives what you want to say in your art more room to breathe and create more of an impact.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I do think originality and innovation coexist with perfection and timelessness in music in various ways.

We wouldn’t have originality and innovation if it wasn’t for perfection and timelessness. So much of this I think is about the art of storytelling, how we’ve told our stories since music began and the reinterpretation of that over the decades. In that reinterpretation we push the boundaries of what we know into sounds in music that are really pioneering.

I’m interested in a music of the future, but with foundations of tradition. So much of forwarding thinking music comes from the structures that were there before, but should always be made to be broken away from.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

I have found the piano / keyboard to be one of my important instruments and tools, it’s where I create the basis for all my work, where I feel most at home to find my voice and the melodies / motifs I want to create and explore and expand further down the line.

Having a family that’s musically inclined, with my dad being able to play music by ear and working with pitch, I was able to teach myself guitar and piano, which has allowed me to develop my own composing style and to not be afraid of trying out new techniques when it comes to composing and arranging.

One of my other most important tools is the DAW + midi keyboard, which for me I’ve mostly used Logic Pro over the course of my development, and it has been really key towards my development.

With Logic Pro and DAWs in general I’ve been able to really hone in my own producing skills and practice and play around with the different VSTs / virtual instruments, put them together and take them apart again, break their sound inside out and find something new within that, which has allowed me to apply my own stamp to music.

DAWs are a really perfect way of working out what exactly you want to do in music. I find it gives so much opportunities to map out what you do want to in the long run, whether it be full or short records. It gives you space to create those mind maps, to best organise the skeletons of your ideas.  

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I start my day with meditation, at least 3 minutes per day. It helps me to feel grounded and more at ease. Especially with creativity, it helps me to feel renewed with a sense of purpose.  

I also have a creative journal where I write down ideas for music pieces I want to explore - titles, lyrics and free writing that I go back to frequently. It helps me to envision what I want to fully achieve in my music and as an artist.

I then practice at least 15-30 minutes a day on piano / keyboard and / or guitar, to help maintain my muscle memory in my music playing, and to keep building and fleshing out my ideas into eventual fully realised pieces.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

My creative process is very intuitive. I would say it’s much like Cat Power’s album – You Are Free, which is one of my all-time favourite albums: It’s minimal with a DIY approach, relying on the intuition and the spontaneity of the way you express your stories, ideas and emotions, and how it can all feel like it’s never out of reach.



So I would say my creative process generally is very instinctive and based on that feeling.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

The solitary and communal activity aspects of music feels like it always ebb and flows. I really value the experience of creating and listening to music in solitude always, because it helps you define who you are and recharge you in so many beautiful ways.

Then recently I’ve been leaning in to working with and enjoying collaborating with others a lot more, creatively connecting and creating music with others really opens up your world to what else is possible. It helps to get out of your bubble that you can easily be so use to when working alone and be stuck in your ways.

So to be in the collaborative process with your peers from their different crafts can be really illuminating and inspire growth.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

Creativity and creative work are tied to such a huge universe out there that’s not just about me or one person. So I think how I relate to the world with my work and creativity is relating and connecting with others through my work, because I think forming real genuine connections with people on any level is what it’s all about. It makes life much more enriching, especially through music and creativity.

Music has many roles in society – both culturally, and politically. But I think it’s simply to move people. It helps us understand who are more when we don’t have the language to realise that otherwise. Music these days in society has become more of a precious commodity than anything, because what’s life without experiencing art that moves and heals us!

We stream music everyday – to enhance whatever thing that we’re doing, and especially my line of work doing music for film, the purpose of music in Film / TV is to purely evoke emotions and move audiences. So I think if we didn’t have music in society right now, it would be almost impossible for people in general to express how they truly feel and think about the world and their place in it.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Well doesn’t it contribute to our understanding of them all the time? Music is a constant rotation of these big topics and more.

My music is always an elevation of the understanding of these questions, as with music in general.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

I very much think music is predominantly an emotional experience, but we can also argue the fact that it comes from mathematical science.

In Ancient Greece maths, astronomy and music were all one subject. So music is formulaic and comes from this formula that has been ever existing. Scientists these days also research the cognitive and physical benefits that music offers for those who have a range of health problems such as Parkinson’s; and also music and sound therapy exists.

So I’d say music and science continually help each other to make progress and improve the conditions of our lives and the human existence.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I think ‘mundane’ tasks can feed into writing and performing music in some ways, so they’re not too different from each other. I find tasks like making a cup of coffee or even hoovering can be really reflective and therapeutic, I believe all of it is really relative because they’re all each part of a process.

The only thing is that for me making music requires a level of self-awareness that’s not required so much in day-to-day tasks. For me it is a very intent act even on a subconscious level, where compared to the ‘mundane’ tasks it doesn’t need as much effort.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

They say about the soul, you can have all the facts in the world about absolutely everything, but the origin of our souls can and will remain mysterious. And I think the way music transmits these deep messages can be the same.

Yes it can be part about how sound waves travels to our ears, but I like to believe that music allows us to connect to a divine nature for ourselves, tapping into a collective celestial energy that doesn’t need to be fully explained.

This uncertainty within music I think is so beautiful to embrace.