Saturday, July 5, 2003
M A I N   F E A T U R E


Swapnil ke sang
Dharam Pal

SwapnilA popular singer, Swapnil has been singing devotional, pop, semi-classical, natya sangeet, folk and remixes for music companies like Sagarika Music, Tips, T. Series, Venus, Magnasound, Times Music and Wings Music to name a few. His first pop album in Hindi Sang Sang Ho Tum should help him gain a wider appeal.

A known name in Mumbai, Swapnil has worked with great music composers like Ravinder Jain, Vishal Bhardwaj, Amar Utpal, Ashok Patki, Shridhar Phadke, Shrirang Aras, Kedar Pandit and Nandu Honap. "I am working towards singing more Hindi songs, and this album has been the first step towards bringing me closer to the North Indian listeners," announces the singer.

This album experiments with new sounds. Its music has been composed by the talented duo Ajay-Atul. The lyrics have been penned by none other than Shyam Anuragi, who has given numerous hits to the Indi-pop world for the past 10 years.

 


"This album is the result of a number of brain-storming sessions between me and Ajay-Atul, who set the tunes and the result was amazing," Swapnil notes with a hint of pride in his voice.

Initiated into the world of classical music at the tender age of four, Swapnil started learning vocal classical from Pandit Vasantrao Kulkarni. Since then he has travelled a long and illustrious path in the world of Indian film music. Swapnil gave his first stage performance at the age of four and since then he has performed all over the world in countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, the USA and Bangladesh. He performs on a regular basis with artistes like Suresh Wadkar, Kavita Subramaniam, Sadhna Sargam and Sonu Nigam.

Swapnil received the All-India Scholarship for Hindustani Classical from the government in 1984. He is at present under the guidance of Suresh Wadkar and is also associated with Suresh Wadkar’s music academy, which encourages and helps young talent in the music industry.

Swapnil has lent his voice to scores of TV serials, albums, plays, films, etc. He has sung in various languages like Hindi, Marathi Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Punjabi and Oriya. His versatility is amply visible by the fact that he has recorded more than 2000 songs.

Swapnil was recently awarded the Alpha Gaurav Puruskar-2003 for Best Male Artiste in the basic album category. One of the winners of TVS Saregama in 1996, he has been anchoring the famous Raag Ek Rang Anek, a Marathi musical competition telecast on Doordarshan. He has also acted in a musical play, Sangeet Aradhana, produced by Nehru Centre at Mumbai.

The album Sang Sang Ho Tum has eight melodious tracks which explore the range and versatility of the artiste. The music video of the track Sang Sang Ho Tum... has shot on exotic locales of Rajathan by Collosus, India’s top video director. The video features Rima Lamba (Mallika Sherawat) and Baljeet Singh.