Carla Patullo
Grammy-Winning Composer & Songwriter

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:02.186) Today's guest is Carla Patullo, a Grammy-winning composer, musician, songwriter, and director whose work moves across soundscapes, film, and song.

Suraaj Parab (00:13.367) Welcome, Carla, to The Artist Conversation.

Carla Patullo (00:14.978) Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's really nice to be here. Thank you.

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:21.45) We are super excited to have you. Getting right into it, Carla—as we were researching your work, we noticed you started making music as a child, inspired by your grandmother's voice and your first piano explorations. Looking back, what was it about music that felt like home before you even knew what a career could be?

Carla Patullo (00:48.63) Yeah, I mean, it really just felt like my language, you know? It's interesting because my grandmother and my parents were from Italy, and we were in Massachusetts—they immigrated to Massachusetts. So, I had this broken English in the house, I had this Italian, and then there was music. Music was this thing where I figured out pretty quickly it was giving me the ability to bring out my emotions. It was a pure language to me.

Sandeep Kulkarni (01:26.98) That is awesome. In your first piano explorations, how old were you?

Carla Patullo (01:34.42) Man, I must've been like five or six or something. You know those little toy pianos that have maybe an octave on them? My grandparents got me one, and I would sit there and play. I remember at first I'd be like, "Okay, 'Jingle Bells,'" or whatever one-note melodies I could do. Then I just started going off and writing little melodies.

From pretty early on, I wanted to learn to play the piano because I wanted to write. There was something I needed to write. Music, instruments, and my voice all became about: How do I write? How do I get this out? More than wanting to obsessively study the mechanics of the instrument, I needed to be able to express myself on it.

Sandeep Kulkarni (02:37.228) That's awesome. Did you actually start learning from a teacher professionally after that? Was it classical, or what path did it take?

Carla Patullo (02:49.632) Yeah. So, my parents saw how much I loved it. I also just want to say my grandmother taught me about recording. She wasn't a professional singer, but she loved Italian folk songs. She would ask me to record her with a little cassette player because she wanted me to capture these songs. I think that has really stuck with me throughout my musical path. When I'm writing or creating an album, I'm capturing a specific moment; I'm capturing the essence of the songs.

But my parents saw how much I loved music and decided to get me some lessons. Believe it or not, I fell in love with the saxophone. I was horrible at it, but I fell in love with it and wanted to learn it. I went to a local music school that taught saxophone, voice, and piano. The funny thing is, this school in Massachusetts—called Falsettis—was well known for accordion lessons. Every year they would put together this massive accordion orchestra, and I started singing for them! It was insane—about 30 accordions playing at the same time. It was so cool. I just tried to get involved with as much as I could because I knew I needed to learn how to play and perform to get my compositions out there.

Sandeep Kulkarni (04:48.956) An accordion orchestra? Wow.

Carla Patullo (04:54.304) Yeah, it was like 30 accordions, a few guitar players, and a drummer. We would actually go on tour! We would go play random little cities, and they would have these huge competitions against other accordion orchestras, which was shocking to realize existed.

Sandeep Kulkarni (05:12.87) I’ve never heard of that, to be honest. I'm trying to visualize and imagine what that soundscape was like.

Carla Patullo (05:22.474) It was actually pretty cool. Oddly enough, I learned a lot about arranging through that process. A lot of the accordions were hooked up to MIDI, so you would get these really wild, layered electronic sounds mixed in. It was really fun and unconventional.

Suraaj Parab (05:54.509) That's superb. You have moved fluidly between roles as a songwriter, recording artist, musical director, and film/TV composer. How has moving between these different creative worlds shaped who you are as an artist?

Carla Patullo (06:14.89) It's everything. I went to music school and eventually studied at Berklee in Boston because my parents pushed me. As a first-generation college student, they said, "You have to go to university." I said, "Okay, fine, but I'm studying music!"

I've shifted into different roles because I have this hunger to learn. Whatever it is I'm doing, I usually end up building the infrastructure from scratch. Sometimes you have to step up and be the music director or the logistical director. If you don't have a big corporation or music label behind you, you have to wear all those hats yourself, otherwise it’s just not going to get done.

Some things happened organically. I was in Austin at South by Southwest (SXSW), and my band at the time ended up opening for Sandra Bernhard—the comedian, musician, and actress. She really liked my band, so she brought me on the road with her as her music director. It was a wonderful experience touring and performing alongside people like Liza Minnelli and Rufus Wainwright. I got to experience and learn about music in a different way; we were putting together these unique ensembles to create music that directly supported her narrative, her stories, and her comedy. Up until then, I was only writing songs about myself, so learning how to support someone else's story was a massive shift that seamlessly led me into film composing.

Sandeep Kulkarni (08:17.76) SXSW is an amazing conference that happens in Austin every year. I've come close to going multiple times, including last year, and I definitely want to make it out there one of these days.

Carla Patullo (08:42.582) It has changed a lot and gotten very expensive now. My experience was about 10 or 12 years ago. Now, you almost need a specific industry connection because the cost is crazy.

But I really loved film composing. After touring for a while, I needed a structural break, so I enrolled in Berklee's master's program for film scoring. I took a quick leap into it, and I'm so glad I did. For my master's project, I discovered a very old film by Lotte Reiniger, an absolute pioneer of German animation from the 1920s who created the world's first feature-length animation a decade before Walt Disney. History frequently overlooked her, but I fell in love with her work and started composing original scores to her silent films. That completely opened the doors for me in the film scoring industry and taught me the fine art of cinematic narrative. She deeply inspires my work.

Sandeep Kulkarni (10:58.132) Your music spans ambient textures, orchestral depth, layered vocals, and electronic exploration. When you sit down to compose, what is the first thing your thought process listens for? Is it emotion, texture, or the narrative?

Carla Patullo (11:32.427) It's completely different depending on if it's my personal solo work versus a film score. For my personal work, it honestly feels like a visceral, stirring sensation—almost like a heavy emotional gut feeling that I need to explore. I like to sit at the piano to carve out melodies or uncover chord progressions. It's an organic, evolutionary process with no fixed formula.

My first solo album, So She Howls, had a completely different creative architecture than my second album, Nomadica. So She Howls started purely with my raw vocals and ambient textures, and then I layered in the string arrangements and the choir. With Nomadica, I flipped it—I started with the core melodies and the acoustic strings first, and then brought in the surrounding ambient textures. I just let it unfold organically.

Sandeep Kulkarni (12:58.484) Starting with vocals and watching that entire structure layer and build over time is spectacular. It's like a compositional evolution, taking it one layer at a time.

Carla Patullo (13:22.838) I love that the process changes every time; that's why I shift so much stylistically. Sometimes I force myself to pick up an instrument I don't master. You see I have my cello out back there—I've been bringing it out again. I don't play cello well at all, but I’ll mess around with it to generate raw, unpolished sounds. Sometimes that completely opens up a new window of inspiration, leaving a fresh space for my vocals to nestle into. Playing with limitations keeps the process organic.

Suraaj Parab (14:15.084) In film scoring, the music must solve someone else's creative prompt without overwhelming the scene. What does it feel like to score emotion for a character or a scene, especially when that emotion isn't explicitly spoken in the dialogue?

Carla Patullo (14:39.372) Through all the films I've scored, I have to find a core emotional thematic element that deeply resonates with me. I gravitate toward films where I can find an immediate connection to the story. Once I find that emotional entry point, it acts as the creative glue that allows me to dive deep into the characters and figure out how to best open up and support the director's narrative. Whether it's a narrative feature or a documentary cause that I am passionate about, that connection is everything.

Sandeep Kulkarni (16:05.084) Since you already know the ending of the film, does that mean you are essentially composing from the back of the movie to the front?

Carla Patullo (16:29.59) I know what you mean, but it's a tricky balance. I just wrapped up a sci-fi drama feature called Brother Savages. The core challenge of film scoring is that even though you've seen the ending a million times, the music cannot anticipate the plot points for the audience. You have to pull the musical tension back and pace it carefully.

When I analyze a film, I look at the macro emotional arc of the whole story and what the director is trying to say. Personally, I prefer to work away from the picture at first to just build thematic ideas. For Brother Savages, they actually brought me out to the physical set on a farm, which was spectacular. I got to record raw environmental sounds to incorporate into the score. Being fully immersed in the physical world of the film changes everything.

Sandeep Kulkarni (17:45.214) Being on set is incredible. In the past, I worked for a VFX studio in LA and spent a lot of time on film sets for commercials and music videos. It's fascinating to see how the physical production translates into post-production.

Carla Patullo (18:43.978) It's the best! As composers, we spend a massive amount of time isolated in dark rooms by ourselves. Being on a physical set reminds you that film is a massive, unified team effort. It's beautiful to participate in that.

Sandeep Kulkarni (18:56.084) You describe your sonic sensibility as "genre-fluid"—a space where classical, ambient, experimental, and traditional song structures intersect. How do you maintain your definitive identity and vocal signature while letting so many different genres speak through you?

Carla Patullo (19:25.868) I'm going to refer to a great Philip Glass quote for this one. I've spent a long time working to define my voice, and Philip Glass said that once you finally find your voice, you have to turn around and lose it. There is immense truth to that. I absolutely refuse to stay in the same creative place or be put into a definitive box.

Ten years ago I was in an aggressive indie-rock band, and then I decided to completely shift gears and experiment with a classical orchestra. If I hadn't taken that leap, I wouldn't be where I am today. When I listen to my old material, I can still hear my artistic identity in it, but I'm continuously evolving. I get bored staying in the safe zone. As time passes, I want to follow the natural flow of the music without restricting where it wants to head.

Sandeep Kulkarni (20:43.136) I love that approach. Being pigeonholed by critics or the industry as someone who can only deliver one specific sound is a danger in any art form. Having that continuous fluidity to adapt and change across styles is a powerful asset.

Carla Patullo (21:23.712) I really treat my work as a servant to the narrative. If a story requires me to delve heavily into analog synthesizers to be told correctly, I will gladly do it. I'm going to take full advantage of the creative freedom that comes with being an independent artist.

Suraaj Parab (22:09.932) That flexibility is essential. Your Grammy-winning album, So She Howls, emerged from some of your absolute darkest personal chapters, including a near-death experience and severe personal loss. How does transforming intense physical and emotional pain into sound change you as a creator, and as a listener of your own work?

Carla Patullo (22:50.838) So She Howls was a deeply raw project. I returned to music out of pure, survivalist necessity. While writing the album, I was battling cancer, alongside dealing with the traumatic grief of losing my mother. Creating music became the singular mechanism that allowed me to get out of bed, quiet my anxiety, and reclaim my life.

When I started tracking it, I didn't even intend for it to become a commercial album. It began simply with me recording raw vocal chants directly into my phone because I needed an outlet. As my health slowly stabilized, those melodies evolved into full song arrangements. That is how I accidentally entered the worlds of ambient, new age, and sound healing. The album was essentially a sonic documentary of my recovery.

Going through that trauma fundamentally shifted how I hear sound. I became hyper-attuned to the specific frequencies of nature outside my door. I would sit by my instruments and hold out long, single vocal tones to find the frequencies that physically brought my body into a state of calm. It reminded me on a molecular level of exactly why we seek out music in the first place.

Sandeep Kulkarni (26:03.104) That deeply resonates with me, Carla. I have a very similar story. I was just telling Suraaj yesterday about some concepts I want to write. I have experienced the profound loss of my mother, my father, and my brother. Those thoughts are constantly swirling in my head. Writing lyrics and shaping melodies acts as an emotional outlet. I scribble in my notepad the second those thoughts arrive because I don't want them to slip away.

Carla Patullo (27:20.45) I'm so sorry for your losses, Sandeep. But that is exactly what music provides. Going through cancer made me hyper-aware of how many people are silently navigating heavy illness and grief without an outlet. I wanted to share that space. My latest album, Nomadica, serves as that exact domain. My mother passed away suddenly in a traumatic car accident, and it took me many years to reach a place where I could functionally process that grief. Honestly, I don't think I could have cracked open that emotional space if I hadn't gone through cancer myself. Facing mortality shifted my perspective from anger over her early death to an overwhelming gratitude for the beautiful time I did get to share with her. Music guided me down that path of healing, and being able to share that vulnerability creates an immediate, life-affirming connection with others.

Sandeep Kulkarni (28:18.016) It breaks down the isolation completely. Touching on those milestones, winning a Grammy for Nomadica speaks volumes about your artistic vision and its profound emotional impact. Beyond the industry accolades, how do you personally measure success in a life devoted to music?

Carla Patullo (28:52.15) The fact that I can wake up tomorrow morning, write a song, and sustain my life entirely through my creative practice is my baseline measure of success. Winning the Grammy for Nomadica was unbelievable because I put my entire, unfiltered vulnerability out there. When you make yourself entirely naked emotionally, that is exactly when the audience connects.

During the production of Nomadica, the musicians in the ensemble and I sat down and openly spoke about the mothers we had lost. That shared grief became the emotional anchor of the entire recording process; it unified the choir and the string players. True collaboration with other musicians on a deep human level is incredibly fulfilling.

Sandeep Kulkarni (31:51.552) That is exactly how Suraaj and I became as close as brothers—brothers from another mother. Our collaborative musical process brought us together; our thought patterns aligned, and tracking vocals on his compositions instantly clicked.

Carla Patullo (32:29.996) That is beautiful. When you are operating in the music industry as a business, it is incredibly easy to get bogged down by administrative stress and financial planning. But finding true collaborators brings you right back to the pure joy of the art form.

Sandeep Kulkarni (33:02.528) Your point about vulnerability fostering deep human connection is spot on. I experienced this recently through a non-profit performance series out here in San Diego called Menologues, where men step onto a stage to share highly vulnerable, personal stories. I shared my journey while weaving acapella vocal pieces directly into the spoken performance. Stripping away the production and standing alone at a microphone created an immediate, powerful connection with the audience.

Carla Patullo (34:33.644) Yes! It's like you are formally inviting the audience to step into that sacred room with you. That is beautiful.

Suraaj Parab (35:13.292) Your scores appear across films, television series, documentaries, and animation, touching incredibly diverse communities. What cultural and human responsibility do you feel your music carries when shaping a collective space?

Carla Patullo (35:40.557) I intentionally jump between completely different cinematic styles. Some days we require a heavy, observational social documentary to raise public awareness around a critical cause. But other days, humanity simply needs a magnificent comedy to laugh and release tension. I love serving both ends of that spectrum. Music is my primary outlet for absorbing and processing the world. By staying genre-fluid, I ensure that I am continuously learning and expanding my understanding of the human condition.

Sandeep Kulkarni (37:28.66) In the film scoring industry, directors frequently rely on a temporary temp track during editing, and they often pressure the composer to exactly mimic the style of someone else. How do you navigate that corporate pressure while maintaining your personal voice?

Carla Patullo (37:41.711) It is a notorious challenge in this industry. A director falls deeply in love with a temp track by an iconic composer they cannot afford, and they hire you to replicate it. You have to stretch your skills to accommodate their aesthetic targets, which forces you to adapt under incredibly tight timelines.

Often, you are required to produce, mix, and deliver 15 to 45 minutes of complex orchestral or electronic music in under a month. It forces you to become highly strategic. However, the unique prompts of film scoring force me to write chord movements and arrangements that I would never naturally come up with on my own. I treat it as an exceptional playground for technical growth. But at the end of the day, no matter how much a director wants me to sound exactly like someone else, my personal vocal identity will inevitably bleed through the arrangement.

Suraaj Parab (41:16.618) Writing to translate your own internal emotions versus adapting someone else's external vision requires two completely distinct skill sets. How difficult was it to learn that psychological adaptation?

Carla Patullo (41:45.067) It is a steep learning curve. You have to listen intently and construct a functional creative vocabulary with the director at lightning speed. Because you are serving their vision, you must be entirely willing to check your artistic ego at the door, throw your favorite cues into the trash, and start over from scratch without resentment.

Often, your initial instinctual gut reaction to a scene ends up being the definitive theme you return to in the end. But you cannot treat your first draft as a precious, untouchable object. You have to completely trust the director's emotional alignment with the core arc of the film.

Suraaj Parab (44:30.389) That is brilliant advice. It reminds me of editing music videos for clients—you have to surrender your personal bias because you are hired to manifest their specific vision.

Carla Patullo (45:24.078) Exactly. You have to deliver exactly what the narrative requires. Managing intense deadlines is an art form in itself. When I was writing albums for my old rock band, the writing process could stretch on for a year. Now, I love the absolute discipline of a tight deadline. Even for my solo work like Nomadica, I established strict deadlines to force better planning. We had a very tight budget, tracking the strings across a few select studios and recording the choir arrangements in my small home studio using high-end digital reverbs. Tight constraints force you to be highly strategic.

Suraaj Parab (47:08.748) Nomadica is an exceptional album, and I am proud to have cast my official Recording Academy voting ballot for it. Looking forward, Carla, what is a story or an unmapped human emotion that you haven't put to music yet, but still calls you forward?

Carla Patullo (47:32.695) I am deeply interested in exploring how music can be directly engineered to combat the severe mental health crises, anxiety, and depression that younger generations are struggling with today. I have been researching formal music therapy models to see how specific frequencies, rhythms, and soundscapes can provide actual psychological relief. I anticipate my creative path will remain anchored in healing music and music therapy experimentation for a long time. I find the science of sound healing absolutely fascinating.

I practice stationary meditation, but I am someone who fundamentally needs movement to get my creative energy flowing. The intersection of sonic frequency and physical movement has a powerful effect on my own anxiety, and I hope to compose a dedicated body of work centered entirely around that therapeutic bridge.

Sandeep Kulkarni (49:22.004) That is wonderful. Carla, thank you so much for joining us and sharing the profound courage, openness, and care that defines your storytelling.

Carla Patullo (49:36.526) Thank you both so much for having me. It has been an absolute joy sharing stories and connecting with you today.

Suraaj Parab (49:45.708) The pleasure is entirely ours. This conversation is a beautiful testament that music can hold the heavy experiences for which we don't always have words, and make them feel deeply shared.

Sandeep Kulkarni (50:02.24) Thank you for your generosity and time, Carla. To our listeners, if this dialogue resonated with you, please share it with a friend. Follow Carla Patullo’s exceptional journey on Instagram and explore her Grammy-winning discography on her official website. We will see you all on the next episode of The Artist Conversation. Thank you, everyone.