Chandrika Tandon's Triveni Wins Grammy for Best New Age Album
Indian-American global business leader and musician, Chandrika Tandon, won a Grammy for Triveni, an album that fuses ancient chants with world music, at the 67th Grammy Awards. At 71, Tandon received the prestigious gramophone for her collaborative album in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category. The seven-track album is designed as a meditative journey, which Tandon describes as 'inner healing'.
She joined forces with South African flautist Wouter Kellerman and Japanese cellist Eru Matsumoto to present age-old Vedic chants in the album named after the confluence of three rivers, besides representing their three different styles. “Music is love, music ignites the light within all of us, and, even in our darkest days, music spreads joy and laughter”, she said while receiving the coveted award in Los Angeles.
Growing up in a traditional and orthodox middle-class family in Chennai, Chandrika Krishnamoorthy Tandon, an alumna of Madras Christian College, was immersed in music alongside her younger sister Indra. With the family deeply rooted in the teachings of the Samaveda, Vedic chants, along with Carnatic music, were an integral part of their traditional upbringing.
While Indra Nooyi served as CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years, earning recognition as one of the 50 most powerful women in business globally, Tandon became the first Indian-American woman partner at McKinsey and founded Tandon Capital Associates, a New York-based firm focused on the measurable restructuring of institutions.
A graduate of IIM Ahmedabad, she became a global business leader and philanthropist who, with her husband Ranjan, donated $100 million to the New York School of Engineering in 2015. The institute now adds Tandon to its name.
Tandon, who learned music from classical singer Shubhra Guha and vocalist Girish Wazalwar, was nominated for her first Grammy in 2010 for her album Om Namo Narayana: Soul Call.
This year, she was nominated alongside producer Ricky Kej, sitar player Anoushka Shankar, and British artist of Indian origin Radhika Vekaria.
Shankar, who has been nominated about 11 times, missed out again on winning a golden gramophone. Meanwhile, her half-sister Norah Jones, daughter of Pt Ravi Shankar, won the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Visions, her ninth studio album, which features soothing tracks blending various genres.