Shilpa Natarajan

Shilpa Natarajan
Natarajan in 2014
Background information
Born	(1987-07-31) July 31, 1987 (age 34)
Origin	Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Genres	Indie pop, alternative, indie folk, experimental, parody
Occupation(s)	Singer-Songwriter
Years active	2011-present
Website	www.shilpanatarajan.com

Shilpa Natarajan is an independent acoustic singer-songwriter and a playback singer and was a Music Presenter on Chennai Live 104.8FM, based in Chennai, India. In 2015 she performs with the Beef Sappad Trio.^[1] She is an ATCL diploma graduate in Western Classical Music (Performance).

Early life and education[]

As a child Natarajan attended school in Muscat.^[2] She later moved with her family to Chennai, where she attended Vidya Mandir in the neighbourhood of Mylapore and joined the school's Carnatic orchestra.^[3] Natarajan had grounding in classical Carnatic music for close to two decades. Her first Guru was her mother Maheshwari Natarajan, followed by Vijayalakshmi Subramanian and Shuba Ganesan. Natarajan is also a student of Western classical music.

Career[]

Natarajan used to work with a Corporate Group based in Chennai and worked on her music during the weekends.

Now she works with Chennai Live 104.8 FM as a music presenter of the 'morning show'.

Her first entry into the Tamil music industry was in 2008 when she participated on a contest TV Show, Airtel Super Singer- Season 1. While she did not make it to the finals, she was invited to be a guest performer along with a lot of others from the show.

Natarajan then sang a song for a Tamil television serial- 'Puriyadha Pudhir', on Raj TV.

She entered the Tamil playback industry in 2012 with a song for a feature film titled 'Marina'. The song which she was a part of,'Vanakkam Chennai', has received more than 2 million hits^[where?] and Shilpa was invited to sing the song on Star Vijay's Super Singer.^[4]

She has sung for Disney Tamil and Nickelodeon and her voice can be heard as a singer, on both 'Nala' from Lion King and Ariel from 'Little Mermaid' (in Tamil).

She has collaborated with Vandana Srinivasan, a playback singer in Chennai and Prithvi Chandrasekar of Krimson blend on a cover of Amit Trivedi's 'Pareshaan' from Ishaqzaade.

Shilpa collaborates with Chennai's theatre company StrayFactory Entd. and has been a part of The Metroplus Theatre Festival and the Short + Sweet Festivals with Ganga at Rishikesh and Maya From Madurai.

Shilpa has been a part of Girishh Gopalakrishnan's Vidiyum Munn by singing, along with Susheela Raman and Ramshanker S., the song, 'Penne'.

She has also sung the title track, "Hi",^[5] for Vishal Chandrasekhar's 'Hi da' which is yet to release.^[6][7]

Natarajan began to write songs in 2011 and released her Tamil single, "Yenakku Nee Sondhama" which was produced by G.D. Prasad. Subsequently, she released an English single "Shadow On your Wall".^[8] In 2011, Shilpa collaborated with G.D. Prasad, on a bi-lingual song - "String of Shining Pearls"

In 2013, Natarajan worked with several independent musicians in Chennai and was a part of a Tamil single "Thedal", composed by Ramshanker S. That year she took part in The Hindu's Metroplus Theatre festival and 'The Fete De La Musique'.

Natarajan's next single "Dirty Little Secret", was premiered at The Metroplus Theatre Festival in August 2013, and at about that time she was featured on Zee Thamizh 's 'Isai Unplugged' show, along with a few other independent musicians, as part of a band called 'Untitled'.

In 2015, she was performing with a group called "The Beef Sapad Trio".^[9][10] In 2016 the group performed at a Beatles Tribute concert in Chennai.^[11]

In 2016 Natarajan performed with the Madras Musical Association choir.^[12] IN 2017 she released her debut EP, Bubblewrap in two languages.^[13] The EP included 5 tracks in English and 2 in Tamil, and was produced by . Bubblewrap features musicians including Joslin Julius, Hariprasad, Vijay B., , , Adithi Deborah and Varun Ram Iyer. The EP is a mix of Indie pop, world, Indie-folk and other genres with tinges of other genres like alternative, carnatic and swing mixed with the music. 'Yenakku Nee Sondhama' was featured on BBC Asian Radio Network on on 19 March 2017. "Bubblewrap", the title track of the EP was featured on BBC Asian Radio Network on on 26 March 2017.

Beef Sappad Trio[]

Beef Sappad Trio is a parody act^[14] from the city of Chennai. The act comprises Dr. Yohan Chacko (Veal Smith), Sandeep John (TenderLoins of Punjab aka TLPJ) and Shilpa Natarajan (BarbieQ). The act write parody songs based on current affairs and are strictly humorous.

While they have written and perform many songs, some of their YouTube-released tracks are NRI song (feat. Stray Factory),^[15] The Biryani song, Monsoon Christmas (A song based on the Chennai floods of 2015) and most recently The Endodontist song.

Discography[]

Animated series[]

• Biriken (Title Track)
• Sally Bollywood (Title Track)- Discovery Tamil
• Lion King 3- Disney Tamil
• Peter Pan- Disney Tamil
• Concho Bay (Animated Series) – Tamil
• Mickey & Donald have a laugh- Telugu

Associated acts[]

• Strayfactory- Short & Sweet Festival- 'Maya from Madurai', directed by Pooja Balu, written by Naren Weiss, starring Venkatesh Harinathan, Ajay Ayyappan and Shilpa Natarajan
• Fete De La Musique 2013- With Krimson Blend @ Goethe Institut, Chennai
• StrayFactory (Experimental Theatre at Jaaga, Bangalore)
• StrayFactory (Ganga @ Rishikesh, Madras Meals- The Great Indian Blogologues)
• Banaras Shop Quartet (Ganga @ Rishikesh, The Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival- 2012)
• Vandanam ( Pareshaan –A cover )

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Shilpa Natarajan at Soundcloud