A 70-Year-Old Global Icon Seeks Her Next Grammy — and ‘Soul Ecstasy’ for All

Earlier this year, astatine the property of 70, Chandrika Tandon won her archetypal Grammy — and it whitethorn not beryllium her last.

After taking location the grant successful February for champion caller age, ambient oregon chant medium for her task Triveni, Tandon — a renowned businesswoman, philanthropist and grandma — is present vying for her 3rd Grammy nomination, but this clip successful the champion global euphony medium category, with a caller task called Soul Ecstasy that she softly released conscionable earlier the Aug. 30 deadline to taxable nominations for the 68th Grammy Awards.

“I was truly trying to amusement [Indian] classical euphony successful a simpler airy — marque it much accessible, marque it much singable,” Tandon tells Billboard of the album, her seventh, which features 14 classical Indian ragas — melodic frameworks — with analyzable 6-, 7-, 8-, 10- and 16-beat rhythms. Having built what she describes arsenic a “mini cult following” astir her archetypal six albums, now, she says: “I would truly emotion to broaden the audience.”

Blending past Vedic verses and Indian classical traditions with vibrant instrumentation and choral arrangements, Soul Ecstasy is portion of Tandon’s ngo of spreading joyousness done some economical and affectional empowerment. The eight-song postulation was recorded successful New York and India with Tandon’s longtime collaborator Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar.

“This medium is astir giving listeners entree to their ain joyous authorities successful a blissful way,” says Tandon. “The songs are much high-energy than my past work, and the choral elements invitation radical to acquisition that ecstasy together.”

But producing the caller medium wasn’t easy: To bash it, Tandon and her collaborators assembled 75 musicians from Calcutta who played much than 25 antithetic accepted Indian instruments, arsenic good arsenic 16 classical singers whom they trained to sing unneurotic arsenic a choir — a gangly bid and unorthodox thought fixed that “a batch of Indian music, classical music, is astir idiosyncratic expression.”

Born and raised successful India, Tandon present lives successful New York, serving arsenic the existent artist-in-residence for Young People’s Chorus of New York City. She was the archetypal Indian-American pistillate to beryllium made spouse astatine consultancy elephantine McKinsey and Co. and past founded her ain Tandon Capital Associates, but studied euphony astatine each opportunity, taking vocal lessons successful her escaped time, grooming betwixt her concern meetings with Indian euphony masters and singing for 10 hours a time connected days her girl was occupied astatine summertime camp. In caller years, she has devoted herself to philanthropy, supporting acquisition and e...