Reena Bhardwaj - Musical Career

Musical Career

Reena describes her musical career as a “turn of fate” which came about while pursuing her Master's degree at the London School of Economics, when she received an unexpected call from her most favourite Indian Composer, AR Rahman.

With Rahman, she recorded her debut song, “Yeh Rishta” for the Bollywood film soundtrack Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities directed by MF Hussain, which catapulted her from the world of academics to the top of the Indian Music charts. She became the first British Asian Artist to be nominated for a Zee Cine Award for Best Playback Singer and the MTV Immies Award for Best New Talent of 2004.

Next she sang "Baba Kichhu Tha", a Tamil romantic duet with one of South India's most revered playback singers, S. P. Balasubramaniam for the Rajinikanth and Manisha Koirala starrer Baba.

Reena has featured on a number of AR Rahman’s Bollywood and Tamil/Telegu film soundtracks including Mangal Pandey: The Rising, Sakkarakatti and most recently she sang the beautiful song Khilli Re for the Mani Ratnam, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan starrer, Raavan, also by Rahman.

Reena’s has been a regular collaborator with British Asian Composer/Producer Nitin Sawhney, an association that began with her soulful rendition of the epic Indian poem “Heer” by Waris Shah for Sawhney's 2003 album Human (V2). She went on to co-write the popular song “Mausam” for Sawhney's 2006 album Philtre (V2) alongside memorable performances on “Koyal - Songbird” and “The Search”. She appears again on Sawhney's London Undersound in which she expresses her feelings about growing up in London by co-writing the track “Ek Jaan” and sings alongside Sir Paul McCartney in “My Soul”.

Reena has toured extensively with Sawhney and his band and has performed at some of the world’s most culturally elite venues including the Glastonbury Festival, WOMAD in Taormina (Sicily), Jazz Café, The Barbican Centre, The Royal Festival Hall, The Roundhouse for the BBC Electric Proms in 2008. One of her most notable performances was The BBC Proms 2007 at The Royal Albert Hall where she appeared alongside Nitin Sawhney, Natacha Atlas, & Anoushka Shankar.

She has also lent her voice to Sawhney’s film scores, including Channel 4’s Second Generation, Bharat Bala Production’s Hari Om, and the 1929 Silent Indian Classic, A Throw of Dice by Franz Osten, which premiered with the London Symphony Orchestra and subsequently performed with national orchestras in Holland, Italy, New Zealand, US and Canada.

She has collaborated with the UK’s biggest dance duo Basement Jaxx, Basement Jaxx, renowned percussion king Trilok Gurtu, Talvin Singh and award winning British Songwriter Guy Chambers. Her songs feature on various compilation CDs (Ministry of Sound’s, Angel Beach; Pathaan’s Indian Sunset) and Sony Legacy’s 2009 Compilation CD The Best Of AR Rahman.