Vandana Vishwas

- - Le Devoir, Montreal, Canada

- - E-Desi News, Canada

- - Paul Pop, Pop Stereo

- - India West

- - Inside World Music

- - Radio & Music India

Growing up, I often listened to the legendary M S Subhalakshmi's Suprabhatam. That was a staple every Saturday morning as my father went about his prayer rituals as a devout South Indian. In recent years, his musical collection has grown tremendously to include Shreya Ghosal's Ganesh album (which is simply outstanding and highly recommended) and a very popular Ganesh album from the ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh. I even remember him listening to the infamous Anup Jalota...
My mum on the other hand, a Catholic by faith, listened to hymns and we sang in church every Sunday. I remember the school I went to would play hymns in Hindi and Marathi during school hours - both staple languages in Mumbai, my home for many years. My parents seem to find a musical route to express their spirituality and that's something I can identify with, be it via bhajans, Gospel music or new age interpretations of spirituality. A classic case of nurture and nature, I guess! They continue with this expression of their faith to this day...


t And why am I thinking about this today? Because I recently listened to Vandana Vishwas. Her album Meera is a soulful collection of devotional songs that left quite an impression. Her voice displays a maturity that's well beyond her years and has a wonderful soulfulness about it.


With a total of eight songs on this album, I was impressed with the simplicity and sincerity in her voice, coupled with her ability to live up to the sheer poetry of the lyrics. I also love the fact that her pronunciations are right on target and didn't miss a beat... something that I detest when lyrics are based on Sanskrit or other traditional scripts.

The album traces Meera Bai's life and is a good way to get interested in Hindu mysticism and spirituality. It starts out with Badara Re, based on the works of Meera Bai and composed by Vandana Vishwas herself. When I first heard the album, I sat up and took notice of her lovely voice right away. The next track Piya Bin is my favourite on the album - it's a beautiful mix of lyrics and melodious music, and you can tell that the artist is completely passionate about her art. Sanware Ke Rang, a devotional song about Krishna, has some good tabla and flute components, and is an upbeat song which makes is quite likeable.

The next track on the album Sun Lijo, presents a modern approach to devotional music using guitars to good effect. Her voice and the guitar seem to complement each other well as she sings another soothing track. I would consider this a more traditional bhajan with familiar rhythm structures. Take a listen and you'll see what I mean... Fagun ke Char Din is about celebrations and festivities during the month of Holi.

Another favourite on this album is Rana ji and as the inlay card explains, is about Meera Bai speaking directly to the new king, her brother-in-law who wants royal protocols to be followed at all times. Despite several attempts to kill Meera, he is unsuccessful and she decides to take things into her own hands and confronts him. The emotion in this song match the intensity of the lyrics and narrate a tale that intrigues and inspires, without much effort to do either. Chala Wahi Des follows next and I get the impression that Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle were influences as Vandana Vishwas grew up. I haven't quite put my finger on it but I think there definitely is something about the song that reminds me of some old Mangeshkar tracks... and in a good way!

The last track was unexpected and I didn't quite know how it fits onto this album. Having said that, the song isn't bad once you wrap your head around the fact that it is meant for Dandiya!Closer listening reveals that is merely a different version of the first track on the album, with a Dandiya-twist. Like I said, no biggie.

To wrap up, I am glad that this CD made its way to me, because apart from listening to soulful music, I had an opportunity to learn about another artist in the South Asian community, here in Toronto who definitely has talent. Her website sheds some light on the lady behind the golden voice - she's an exponent in Sugam Sangeet (which is a lighter version of traditional Indian vocal music)and an architect by profession. I'm glad her creative exploits go well beyond architecture and design because the album is a good find.

http://mybindi.typepad.com/music/ - Savia Rajagopal, Mybindi.com

- - CBC Vancouver - Andrea Warner

- - Splinters & Candy

Track 'Chala Wahi Des' receives honorable mention at Esongwriter.com awards 2010 - Esongwriter.com

The debut album of Canadian singer Vandana Vishwas, Meera: The Lover... is a music CD album of romantic devotional songs from India, reverberating with an emotion and passion that transcends nationality or language. A soul-hauntingly beautiful work, Mera: The Lover... is a delight to listen to for pleasure and an excellent gift to any loved one who appreciates fine audio art. Highly recommended. - Rock Paper Scissors - Midwest Book Review

Signature track "Badara Re" wins Vox-Pop award for the "World Traditional Song" category at the 10th Independent Music Awards 2011! - Mississauga News - Independent Music Awards

Vandana Vishwas overcame physical challenges and, while still in her teens, earned a Sangeet Visharad, the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in Indian classical vocal music. Born in Lucknow, she now lives in Toronto and works as an architect. But music has been in her blood since childhood and it’s that love that has resulted in this fine debut recording. In Indian history and traditions, the legendary love of Meera for Krishna is documented in stories and passed down through generations. On this recording Vishwas has chosen several Meera poems and composed songs that are moody, somber, and haunting.

Vishwas has a wonderful voice and a keen ear for classical music as well as bhajans (religious devotional music). On Meera the Lover, she explores the story of Meera and her prem-bhakti poetry. Meera’s songs have often been recorded and sung as bhajans for Krishna, but here Vishwas is honing in on the romantic aspects of Meera’s poetry, hence the title of the recording.
Vishwas specializes in Sugam Sangeet (bhajans, ghazals and contemporary songs) and was influenced and inspired by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar and Kishori Amonkar, both of whom also sang Meera bhajans. Meera lived and wrote her elegant poetry five hundred years ago, yet her poems are still sung and celebrated throughout contemporary South Asia.

The songs on this recording are colored by different Ragas including Raga Des (“Badara Re”), Raga Durbari (“Rana Ji”), and Bhairav Thaat (“Chala Wahi Des”). The instrumentation includes tabla, sitar, dholak, acoustic guitars, iktara, and keyboards. There’s also of course the flute, representing the essence of Krishna. The album is available with or without spoken word narrative that tells the story of Meera between the music tracks. - Saathee Magazine (www.Saathee.com)

Meera Bai was a 16th-century Hindu woman whose devotional poetry to Krishna crossed between the spiritual and the physical. She claimed, perhaps not unlike some Catholic mystics in a different context, to be the bride of Krishna. The Indian-born Canadian singer Vandana Vishwas’ song cycle based on Meera Bai’s poems, Meera—The Lover…, is rooted in classical raga yet presented with a light touch in melodies and arrangements of shimmering sitar pop. Vishwas’ voice glides up and down the scale with ease, expressing pain, joy and, sometimes, unworldly delight.

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-8672-vandana-vishwas.html - David Luhrssen, expressmilwaukee.com

Meera Bai was a 16th-century Hindu woman whose devotional poetry to Krishna crossed between the spiritual and the physical. She claimed, perhaps not unlike some Catholic mystics in a different context, to be the bride of Krishna. The Indian-born Canadian singer Vandana Vishwas’ song cycle based on Meera Bai’s poems, Meera—The Lover…, is rooted in classical raga yet presented with a light touch in melodies and arrangements of shimmering sitar pop. Vishwas’ voice glides up and down the scale with ease, expressing pain, joy and, sometimes, unworldly delight.

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-8672-vandana-vishwas.html - David Luhrssen, expressmilwaukee.com

Snow and ice make walking almost impossible for Vandana Vishwas.

When she was 2 days old in India, a hospital nurse poked her with an unsterilized needle, injuring her left hip socket. It never properly formed.

Trying to negotiate uncleared sidewalks in North York, where she worked as an architect, became so painful last winter that she quit. While recovering, she revived an old interest. She hired musicians, took a crash course in recording and this fall released an album of 16th-century love poetry to the Hindu deity Lord Krishna.

She also performed publicly for the first time in years – in Mississauga and Richmond Hill – attracting interest from programmers at the Small World Music Festival and Harbourfront Centre.

"Those poems demand (musical) composition," she says of the boldly romantic writings of the celebrated Rajasthani figure Meera Bai. "They demand that somebody should sing them."

Vishwas, 39, was born in Lucknow and grew up in central India. From an early age, she displayed vocal talent. At 4, she could sing such complex melodies that her parents enrolled her in a classical music institute. At 16, she earned an Indian classical music degree.

Afterward, she sang on national television and All India Radio, winning attention from Bollywood – a childhood dream – and a chance to work as a playback singer for Bollywood films. "But Bombay was not easy for me," she recalls wistfully, "riding on local trains and jumping off (at the stop). Life was too fast. I was struggling."

In the meantime, Vishwas completed an architecture degree, and met and married another architectural student, Vishwas Thoke. "Architecture balances art and technology – that's why I like this field," she says.

In 1997, to advance their careers, the couple moved to Dubai. In the oil-rich Gulf, they joined the construction frenzy of glamorous hotels, office towers, clubs and villas. "Even the villas were big projects," she says.

But the work left no time for music, and in Dubai every foreigner is a visitor. Settling permanently was not an option. In 2002, they came to Canada. Both joined architecture firms, Vishwas continuing with large construction projects, including such landmark lakefront condominium projects as Waterpark City: Phase 1, on Fleet St., and the Maple Leaf Square twin towers, rising behind the Air Canada Centre.

Of Canada, she says: "Here you don't feel you are in a foreign country. People accept you."

Vishwas titled her CD Meera: the Lover. Her songs tell the story of poet Meera Bai articulating the various phases of her feelings for Lord Krishna, from innocent devotion, to romantic passion, to a state of spiritual trance.

The themes are the outsized Bollywood kind: struggle, resilience, the power of love. But it is Vishwas's vocal technique, and tenderness toward melody and lyric, that bring the songs to life.

"The storytelling is innovative and accessible," Small World Music director Alan Davis says of Vishwas's handling of the material. "We're looking to place her in our (2010) South Asian series."

Harbourfront music programmer Alok Sharma said Vishwas was also on his radar.

Touring remains out of the question, Vishwas says. After the spring, she intends to go back to helping shape Toronto's skyline.

- John Goddard, The Toronto Star

Today's rock 'n' roll rebels have nothing on Meera Bai.

A queen living in 16th century India who was so infatuated with the Indian god Krishna that she penned reams of poems declaring her love for him, Meera Bai was a real revolutionary.

"Even after the death of her husband, she insisted that her actual husband (Krishna) was still alive and she refused to participate in the Sati tradition where the widow is expected to burn herself in the funeral pyre of her dead husband," explains Vandana Vishwas, whose gorgeous album, Meera: The Lover, introduces us to Meera Bai through her own poems.

"She continued to write prolifically for Krishna," adds Vishwas. "She was ostracized by her in-laws because of this and her brother-in-law, who was the new king after his brother's death, even tried to kill her a few times, but she survived and openly mingled with vagabond devotees in plainclothes instead of her royal attire. She finally left the royal palace later in her life and lived as a saint in Vrindavan which, according to Indian mythology, was Krishna's hometown."

Vishwas says Meera's fascination with Krishna began innocently enough.

She was watching a marriage procession with her nanny and asked, "Who will be my bridegroom?" Showing her a miniature statue of Krishna, the nanny said, "Him!"

Vishwas says that what started as a childhood infatuation turned into a lifetime of devotion and unrequited romance, leading Meera to ultimately denounce her royal stature and become a saint, social reformer and a legendary poetess.

To tell the story of this intriguing character, Vishwas chose poems that express Meera's gradual development of romantic feelings towards Krishna. The album is available with and without spoken word narrative that tells the story of Meera between the tracks.

So, for example, Badare Re, the album's first song, conveys innocent devotion; Piya Bin, the second song, "represents the phase when Meera begins to realize she needs Krishna in her life, and starts longing for him," and Chala Wahi Des, the last piece, "represents Meera's final disillusionment with not only the royal palace, but the world itself."

Each song features Vishwas' expressive, crystalline voice accompanied by musicians playing various traditional Indian instruments like the sitar, tabla and dholak.

Vishwas says she was exposed to Meera's poetry when she was a child, and had been listening to Indian legends Lata Mangeshkar's and Kishori Amonkar's compositions of Meera's songs regularly "since as far back as I can remember.

"Being a composer myself, I found Meera's lyrics very forceful and compelling, as if begging to be composed and sung," she says. "And being a woman, as I grew up, I started to grasp the true emotions she conveyed through her poetry."

Vishwas, who's been singing Meera's songs since she was a teen, says that although there are scores of movies and albums that focus on Meera's poetry, there weren't any that told her life story through music.

"Ever since I discovered Meera, it was in the back of my mind that one day I would create a musical story of her love for Krishna using her own poems."

NOTE: Meera: The Lover is available online at cdbaby.com, iTunes, and amazon.ca and also at HMV and Chapters/Indigo.

http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/columnists/errol_nazareth/2009/11/13/11732156-sun.html

- Errol Nazareth, The Toronto Sun

This Grammys-of-the-Indie scene, the closing party of Canadian Music Week, has quickly become a media flashpoint and major trolling ground for music fans and tastemakers searching for the next wave of music superstars. Celebrating the successes of indie artists - both from home and abroad - The Indies have become an annual must-attend event. Featuring appearances and performances by some of Canada’s – and the world’s – emerging artists, and broadcast live to air on XM Satellite Radio.

http://www.indies.ca/nominees-winners/ - The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards - 2010

- - The Toronto independent Music Awards 2010

- - Toronto Exclusive Magazine

- - Ontario Arts Council

- - Ontario Arts Council

A packed hall of Sunday attendees was treated to some fine bhajan singing at Vishnu Mandir in Richmond Hill, the first ever architecturally structured Hindu temple in Canada, as artist Vandana Vishwas released her debut CD Meera - The Lover... by the hands of Mr. Krishna Misir, the vice-president of Vishnu Mandir. She was accompanied by Jatinder Parkash on flute, Ganesh Tanwade on tabla and Tej Sharma on keyboard.
Vandana started by thanking her friends, family, her team and Ontario Arts Council for their support in production of her debut CD. She then performed the well-known Ram bhajan Shri Ram Chandra Kripalu based on Raag Yaman. She followed it up with Sanware Ke Rang from her released album, and concluded her performance with the classic Meera Bhajan composed by legendary V.D Paluskar - Payo ji maine.
The performance was thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated by the audience, who flocked to buy the albums for sale at the venue after the performance.
Later in the evening, Vandana sang a couple of more bhajans at the Diwali celebrations organized by Ram Mandir at Living Arts Centre Park, Mississauga, Ontario where she was accompanied by Pandit Vijay Sharma on keyboard and Gurinder Singh on tabla. Despite the cold weather, the park was full and her performance was greatly appreciated. Mississauga Mayor Hon. Hazel McCallion was the chief guest for the evening.
Meera - The Lover... is already generating wide spread media interest, growing its fan base everyday and garnered rave reviews from Midwest Records, Midwest Book Review, Sathee Magazine, Muzikifan etc.
The album is available for digital download online at www.cdbaby.com and www.iTunes.com and all other major online digital retailers. The CD can be ordered online at www.cdbaby.com and www.amazon.ca. It will be available for online ordering at www.hmv.ca shortly. The CD is available for purchase at Musideum at Richmond Street and Maharani Emporium at Gerrard Street Toronto. It will be shortly available at all Super D stores in US and HMV, Chapters/Indigo and other music retailers across Canada.
For more information, visit Vandanas website www.vandanavishwas.com. - Weekly Voice (http://www.weeklyvoice.com/news/newsdetail.php?id=746)

VANDANA VISHWAS/Meera The Lover: Stay with me, this will be lopsided but fun. There was a hippie schemata queen on Atlantic 35 years ago calling herself Mirabai. Her one record made so much impact that Wounded Bird hasn’t even seen fit to reissue it. Meanwhile, there was a real Meera Bai. She was mind screwed by her grandmother into marrying Krishna back in the 1600s. She went on to write the equivalent of the monk devotional love poems that Loreena McKennitt rode to glory a while back. Vishwas looks like hot, young Valerie Bertinelli. Just saying. She wanted to be a Bollywood movie singer like Anita Ellis or Marni Nixon but had to stay in the background because some nurse screwed her up as soon as she hit this planet. Somehow Vishwas and Bai became linked. McKennitt went from west to east to make some hypnotic, exotic music that gringos could easily digest, particularly if they had suburban Goth leanings. Vishwas is an Indian in Canada that keeps it east. McKennitt is from Canada. Vishwas doesn’t make it for gringos since she keeps things in her native tongue but the music isn’t anything that would scare you off if you have any conversance with classic Paul Horn or Paul Winter. The only thing wrong with this record is the announcer that has to make this a documentary between tracks. Otherwise, gringos, this would be a great album to play when you are taking that spacey art chick down to love town letting you get away with having a chick in the background instead of Barry White, and you wouldn’t get an argument. A lovely, hypnotically album that takes you to places you’ve only heard in dreams, for the most part. - Midwest Record

Canadian singer Vandana Vishwas renders Meera Bai's songs of love and passion in a soothing voice. Her debat album, Meera - The Lover, is profoundly melodious. The devotional songs that Meera sang to Lord Krishna who she loved very much captivates the soul and heart.

Meera's songs transcends spirituality and, in fact, gives expression to her inner voice. Her songs that are poetry in motion are what moved Vandana. She says, "“Meera’s poems are very, very impressive in terms of literature and expression. Whenever I read her poems I feel like composing music for them. Her poetry is so strong. The way she talks about Krishna…as if not about a god, but about a lover. There is this fine line between devotion and romance which is transcended in her poems.”

Today, Meera Bai’s poems are recognized as exceptional works, part of the literature in Indian schools, and are gaining international popularity as devotional songs among kirtan enthusiasts and yoga practitioners.

Vandana’s own life story, with its tragedies and triumphs, has brought her to develop a fond affinity with Meera Bai. Vandana’s connection with Meera began as early as her teenage years, when she was an All India Radio contract artist, and, along with her Guru Mr. D.K. Gandhe, she composed some of Meera Bai’s songs. Legendary Indian songbirds Lata Mangeshkar and Kishori Amonkar, who each beautifully sang Meera bhajans, also inspired her fascination with Meera Bai.

Vandana’s dream as a little girl was to be a Bollywood playback singer, but the lasting effects of a painful and immobilizing physical disability, inflicted upon her barely two days after her birth by a nurse using an unsterilized syringe, prevented her from being able to pursue that dream. The album is Vandana's fulfillment of a dream.

Vandana symbolically represents each phase of Meera’s love towards Krishna by composing one song for each phase from her collection and treating them with an appropriate element from Indian classical music, to evoke respective emotions. Thus, Raag Des adorns the romantic rain song “Badara Re,” Raag Darbari emotes the declaration of love in the King’s courtroom in “Rana Ji,” and serene notes of Bhairav Thaat amplify detachment and longing in “Chala Wahi Des.” Each song tells a piece of the story from Meera Bai’s life, and the components of each song are important parts of the telling. For example, in Hindi artwork, Lord Krishna is often depicted as a cow herder, playing a flute which not only calls to the animals, but also to his thousands of gopis (milkmaids) who follow the sound of his flute from far away. Vandana uses the sound of the flute to represent the presence of Krishna. It further represents the longing for something which is simply out of reach, which Meera and other devotees can hear, but never see.

The strains of some of her songs are powerful enough to induce a deep emotional and mental state of mind. The songs paint images of romance. The songs are divine.

The album is available with and without spoken word narrative that tells the story of Meera between the music tracks.

http://www.southasianobserver.com/south_asian_canadian_news.php?mid=1&cid=1860

- South Asian Observer