My Compelling Story

Suman Sridhar is a professional singer based out of the finance capital of India, Mumbai. The composer, artist, and vocalist bridges the worlds of Indian classical, jazz, funk, hip-hop, opera, and cabaret. She has received equal commercial and critical acclaim, thereby earning her the reputation of a vocal gymnast who can transverse smoothly between different genres, cultures, sounds, and languages. Raised in Mumbai by musician parents with a foundation in the classical Indian performing arts, Suman went on to earn a Bachelors degree in Music at Rutgers University, New Jersey. She was conferred the Google-INK Trailblazer’s Grant 2014 towards developing a multimedia opera integrating Tamil folk music. Suman has sung chart-topping Bollywood hits such as Muskaane Jhooti Hain (Talaash, 2012), Fifi (Bombay Velvet, 2015), and Khoya Khoya Chand (Shaitan, 2011). She has received several prestigious nominations including Best Female Indie Artist, MTV Video Music Awards(India), Best Female Playback Singer-Times of India Film Awards, and Band and Album of the Year- Jack Daniel's Rock Awards 2013. Some of her noted radio, televised, LIVE, and gallery performances includes The Great Escape Festival (UK), Southbank Centre (UK), BBC- World Service (UK), Coke Studio (MTV India), NH7 Weekender (India), Galle Literary Festival (Sri Lanka), Jazzmandu (Nepal), National Centre for Performing Arts (India), Radio Mirchi Music Awards (India), Kochi Biennale (India), One Billion Rising (India), and dOCUMENTA (13) (Germany). Suman traverses effortlessly between tradition and experimentation across performance arts, music, film or video, and theatres. She co-founded Sridhar/Thayil, the lyrical post-pop music duo which Rolling Stone Magazine praised as redefining Indie music in India, with author Jeet Thayil. STD, their studio album was released to rave reviews in 2012. A livewire on stage, Suman’s performances employ visual drama and theatricality, exuding the organised chaos of her hometown, Bombay. She is acting in her debut feature film Ajeeb Aashiq which was premiered at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2016 and was nominated for the Bright Future Award. Currently, Suman is working on her next album.