With her Triveni bagging the Grammy for Best New Age Album, singer Chandrika Tandon reveals how she went from McKinsey to the world of music 25 years ago
Chandrika Tandon
Music, although relegated to the background, was a part of Chandrika Tandon’s life for as long as she can remember. But she began her musical journey only 25 years ago. Today, at 71, her decades-long love for the art form has been rewarded as her album Triveni was adjudged the Best New Age Album at the 67th Grammy Awards. Two days after her big win, when we get on a call with New York-based Tandon, she reflects, “I started singing when I was little. In fact, I’d say I sang before I spoke. I would be singing in my head while doing all the chores. During my college years, I’d listen to Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, and my favourite, Asha Bhosle.”
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Given her passion for music, one would think her road to Grammys was almost fated. But it could have all gone very differently. After completing her schooling and college in Chennai, Tandon studied business at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and went on to become the first Indian-American woman to be selected as a partner at McKinsey & Company at 24. Business, board rooms, and number-crunching dominated the years that followed. But something shifted 25 years ago. She recalls, “I got into a crisis of spirit. I thought about what made me happy, and realised that my happiest moments had to do with music. So, I decided to rearrange my life and include music in a more conscious way. I wasn’t trying to perform or make a career in music. I just wanted to make myself happy. I wanted to sing, and sing well.”
That set her off on a “journey” as she searched for music teachers in New York. “I became a musical beggar. I begged everyone to teach me,” she laughs. “I trained under Carnatic music teacher T Viswanathan, Hindustani music teachers like Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Pandit Jasraj, and Pandit Girish Wazalwar. They literally gave me everything with the limitation I had.”
In 2009, Tandon released her first album, Soul Call. Fifteen years and four more albums later, she began working on Triveni with South African flautist Wouter Kellerman, and Los Angeles-based cellist Eru Matsumoto. Their objective was simple—to make “music that heals.” “It was a beautiful coming together of multiple ideas. That’s why we called it Triveni, which is three collaborators bringing their individual traditions and musical history.”
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