MUMBAI: The imbalance between a genuine good voice and auto-tuned voices is wide. But, some voices come as a whiff of a summer breeze. Mirande Shah’s voice is one such voice. A voice seeped with Indianness, Mirande is not unfamiliar to audiences who have following Voice of India reality show from its initial season.

“I was a participant of the reality show Voice of India in the year 2007 and ranked in the top ten. It was quite memorable experience,” says the singer.

Before this, Mirande was a national level swimmer. “While I was a national level swimmer, I had a teacher who would come home to teach music. But at that time, I wasn’t that serious about music as I was a sports person. Post my schooling, I started taking music seriously, completed my Visharad. I was learning under Aniket Khandekar and Nayan Panchal in Ahmedabad itself. I started getting a lot of shows where I had to go and perform Bollywood songs. I got bored of singing the same songs over and over again as there was no creativity in singing those songs repetitively. During the same, I happened to attend a concert where Kaushiki Chakraborty ji was performing and loved her style of singing. That’s when I realised I wanted to learn semi-classical music and from her only.”

Mesmerized by her performance, Mirande tried connecting with Kaushiki Chakroboty and finally met her. “I moved to Kolkata so I could learn music from her. I stayed in the City of Joy for over four years and learnt from her.”

Four years later, Mirande took a decision to move to Mumbai to pursue a career here. “All the three cities I lived in are unique. Ahmedabad, though known as the Heritage City, has limited scope for music beyond regional and Bollywood music. Even for classical music, there is just one major festival-Saptak that happens every year. Other than that, there isn’t much. Kolkata, once known as the heritage city, has immense talent, but is a little laid-back. Despite the amazing talent, somewhere the presentation and packaging isn’t enough. Mumbai, on the other side, is like a commercial market and it is just about having knowledge of how to make things work,” says Mirande.

Standing true to her taleem, Mirande has come up with a new offering, Araj Mori, a self-composed song based on thumri style of gayaki. “The idea came to me in 2015, while I was in Kolkata. That’s when I wrote and composed it. The essence of the song is based on Radha-Krishna romance. My idea was to contemporize the idea,” says the prolific artiste. The song has been now shot in a beautiful video by Yul Rohan Kurup, director of few seasons of Indian Idol and Amitabh Singha, DOP of the movie Good Road that had entered Academy awards.

Mirande has also done many interesting collaborations over the years. One of such has been with EYM, a jazz group from France. “I sing with Kathak too. So, during one such performance for Jazz Kathak at Alliance Francaise Ahmedabad, the dancer I was performing with connected me to EYM. Thereon, I have collaborated with the band many times.”

Recently, Mirande was awarded with GIFA (Gujarati Iconic Film Awards) for her playback for the Gujarati movie Pappa Tamne Nahi Samjay.

Like every singer, she has many inspirations within the field, “Apart from my guru Smt. Kaushiki Chakraborty, I draw inspiration from other musicians from whom I have not learnt. Abida Parveen, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Begum Akhtar are the ones I look up to. I have been a great admirer of Richa Sharma too. Also, I personally perform many ghazals originally sung by Madhurani.”

Speaking for the kind of works she wants to do, Mirande elaborates, “I would love to pursue semi-classical music and perform for relevant shows, like Thumri, Ghazal, Sufi. Alongside, if I get a chance for a Bollywood movie I would be open for that too. I would love to sing massy numbers, given the lyrics are decent and suit my sensibilities.”