Singer Vandana Srinivasan has always believed that everyone should be able to have access to music. After appearing in several YouTube videos and singing for movies like Raja Rani and Thaandavam she started Musicalorie in 2016, along with her husband Anand Pattathil, a business man in Kochi . Together under this banner, they embark on creative ventures that aim to feature collaborations with independent singers, composers and lyricists. The idea behind Musicalorie is to work on independent multi-lingual projects in the coming months. As part of a series of track releases, the duo released two tracks - the first track Tum Ho Nahi in June 2018 and their second track Maraindhidavaa, last week.
Vandana started training in Carnatic classical music at an early age and up until she finished high school. After moving to Chennai in 2006 from Doha for her under graduation, she trained under Hindustani classical music under her guru, Tanushree Saha. Post that, she moved to London and here’s where she was exposed to several musical influences, particularly Bangla music. The first song Tum Ho Nahi, is a groovy hindi number that features her brother Srikanth Srinivasan who is a musician based out of Melbourne. “The song was penned by Shivani Gupta, and the complete video was shot and recorded in Melbourne. It was a humbling, yet exciting experience to collaborate with my brother on a track. And it was also the first track we composed together.”
Known for her Hindi and Tamil renditions of popular tracks like Aaj Jaane Ki Ziid Na Karo, Pareshaan and Rahman mashups, language has never been a problem for the singer. “Fortunately, I grew around multiple cultures so I was introduced to many languages,” says Vandana. “I couldn’t pick up Marathi, but I did manage to learn Kannada. Tamil of course, was spoken at home. My cousins from Mumbai speak Hindi, so I learnt Hindi quickly from them. I grew up in Doha, so I speak some Arabic as well. Luckily I married a Malayali, so that’s another language I’m getting comfortable with,” she says with a laugh.
The second track Maraindhidavaa, is a collaboration with playback singer Haricharan of Paiyya fame, composed and written by Sri Lankan musician duo Sagishna Xavier and Sri Vijay. The groovy number was released by ace film music composer D Imman on social media. “I have worked extensively with both - D Imman and Haricharan in the past few years, especially Haricharan. Our friendship goes long way back and working with him again was such an enriching experience,” says the 29-year-old.