Arts in the Watershed | Jashvina Devadoss

Jashvina Devadoss of Creekside will be playing a special performance at our 20th Annual Plant Sale and Open House alongside and jam band Tuesday Tunes.

FOSC: Could you share a bit about the roots of your songwriting in local watersheds and how your work has evolved over the years, leading up to your current place-based project?

Jashvina: Music and nature touched me deeply growing up in rural Northern Idaho.

American folk music and its many roots and branches captured my heart early

on — I was fortunate to grow up around skilled musicians in these traditions. I

felt a sense of the sacred in the living land around me, the mountains and the

night sky.

When I moved to Berkeley for college, I found a door into deepening my

relationships with music and place. Through my environmental studies, I

developed a growing appreciation for intimately knowing the places we live in,

the history, the traditional land stewards, the seasons, plant and animal

communities. I also began my music studies, learning classical voice in the music

department and fiddle in the broader community.

I released my first album, Emerging, last year with my dear friend Meredith

Jacobson as the band Creekside. In college, we co-taught a course on place-based

writing in the Strawberry Creek watershed. Ten years later, those same themes of

being in relationship with the land shape our songwriting.

I’m currently working on Of this Earth: Songs of the Natural Reserves, a project on

connection to ecological communities, located in the University of California

Natural Reserves. I am also working on my doctoral dissertation on California

forest ecology and climate change at UC Berkeley. Of this Earth weaves together

my work as an ecologist and a musician.

To listen to Of this Earth once it is recorded next year and hear about local shows,

join the email list here. You can listen to Emerging by Creekside on any music

platform, and support the project at creeksidemusic.bandcamp.com —proceeds

go towards recording costs for Of this Earth.

Jashvina with members of Tuesday Tunes

At the Plant Sale on October 25, Jashvina will share original folk songs from the Creekside album Emerging and new songs from her current place-based project Of this Earth: Songs of the Natural Reserves. They will also play a set of contemporary and traditional American music with members of the longtime jam group Tuesday Tunes. Listeners can expect a rich acoustic tapestry of guitar, fiddle, mandolin, clawhammer banjo, stand-up bass, singing, and friendship.