Swagata Bhattacharjee
Voice
Swagata Bhattacharjee
India
Swagata Bhattacharjee is a vocal artist.
Referring to her first musical experience she remembers the beginning of her musical journey as she listening to her brother’s music while playing with a doll house. She also used to sing out to the bandishes in a blue moon once, and remember all of her family laughing in wonders how she sang all the bandishes without knowing how to read and write. She thinks about her life as full of music and realises she hardly spent a day without it.
Formally her training started when she was nine with the eminent Guru of her hometown Late Shree Nani Gopal Chakraborty. She learnt from him for almost 25 years until his sad demise. She also got the opportunity for a few years to learn from Sheemati Shashwati Mandal, an eminent Hindusthani Vocalist of India.
She completed her degree of Bachelor of Arts in Communicative English and Music (Hindusthani Vocal) in 2008 and Masters in Journalism and Mass communication in 2012 in Tripura Central University and received a gold medal. She got her second Master’s degree in Hindusthani Vocal Music in 2018 from Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Jalandhar, Punjab, after few years of working in a TV Channel as News Caster and Reporter and also as a Guest Lecturer in Govt. College in Tripura, India.
She had been an All India Radio artist for Yuvavani Programme where she recorded many songs of Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore for broadcast. She learnt Rabindra Sangeet for five years from Shreemati Rita Chakraborty.
At present, she is part of a few Dance and Music Collaborations and in some of them she has also given her voice and she has composed music digitally for few of them. She is also teaching music.
<<In these global lockdown days, I notice that this distance from each other generated a very basic humanistic reaction among us. We urge to communicate with each other. While giving my voice in Human Signs project, I notice in me a “sharing-understanding-consoling” kind of emotion coming out from my voice interpretation. I listened to the mantra of Mr. Avital for few days before recording, but I did not practice my part. My intention was to record the pure and unrehearsed version of my voice.
While recording, as soon as the mantra started, I also started to reciprocate along with it. I noticed that I was in a state of “giving my ear to someone in need” kind of emotion, showering immense love to the mantra. The words came out of my mouth are, somewhat like, ”Ho man re, jayo kahan…re man re, tu een aa, baith… Re man re, tu na roh, een aa, jayo kahan…“.
Translates to “Oh dear mind, where are you going… Oh dear mind, come here, sit. Oh dear mind, you don’t cry, come here, where are you going…”.
Human signs of Yuval Avital to me is an unique way of knowing my SELF. It has reminded me that music is a portal for the journey from root to tip. I am grateful to the team of Human Signs.>>
