Anjana Rajagopalan

Anjana Rajagopalan
Occupation(s)	Music Composer, Carnatic Vocalist, Playback Singer, Record Producer
Years active	2009–present

Anjana Rajagopalan is an Indian Carnatic music vocalist, music composer, singer and record producer who predominantly works in Tamil Film Industry. She is known for spearheading and performing several multicultural symphony and operatic concerts in Germany, China, Macedonia, India, Poland etc. She is a trained Indian classical Carnatic vocalist, western classical coloratura soprano, explorative pop singer. She also works with the Firdaus Orchestra & Studio by A.R. Rahman in Dubai. She also works in the Indian film industry as a record producer, creative supervisor and vocal producer.

Early life

Anjana Rajagopalan was born in Chennai. She holds a Licentiate Diploma in Vocal Performance from Trinity College London. She was also self taught on the guitar and piano. She is self-taught in all aspects of music composition, production, sound engineering, and orchestration.

Career

She started out as a playback singer in the film industry . She has been performing ghazals, western pop, carnatic, and semi-classical Indian music across the globe through various music shows. Anjana is a music composer and an orchestrator. In September 2023, she co-ideated, composed, and performed as the principal soloist in the Indo-polish Multicultural Music concert series in Klodzko, Poland. She became the first composer in the history of India and Poland to write cross-cultural Indopolish music, which was endorsed and supported by both the Polish government and the Polish public.

She was the Principal Carnatic and Western Vocal Soloist in the ‘Sai Symphony’ concert Composed by world renowned Jazz pianist and founder of Global Music Orchestra - Mike Herting from Germany, and Conducted by Michael Köhler with the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra at the prestigious Historische Wuppertal Stadthalle, Wuppertal, Germany.

She is currently working on a project with the legendary composer A R Rahman and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan as a Music producer & Orchestrator on a multicultural music project. Anjana worked with the eminent composer Rajkumar Bharathi and legendary music producer Sai Shravanam on numerous thematic dance productions by artists such as Leela Samson, Priyadharshini Govind, Anita Guha, Urmila Satyanarayana, and Asha Krishnakumar.

Discography

Anjana has composed music for two upcoming movies Mayakoothu an upcoming Tamil movie and the independent English film Dreams of Fire, both scheduled for release in 2024. She has sung for A R Rahman’s projects Le Musk and Cobra. Rajagopalan is also noted for her role in India's first Playback Opera Aria, Nesam Maruma/Sneham Maruna, a reinterpretation of Puccini's Nessun dorma.

As a playback singer, she has contributed to films in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. Her performances include the bilingual pop song Yaar née/Evar Nuvvu for the film Kolai and a semi-classical piece Neeku Gnapakam for the film Hathya. She has also worked with Vedanth Bharadwaj and Sharanya Gopinath on Ethirvinaiyaartru movie and has also sung the Tamil track O Variya for Iruttu.

Neena, a 29-year-old transgender singer who took weekly Carnatic classes from Anjana Rajagopalan. She was connected with Anjana through Born2Win social welfare trust and continued her lessons once a week and later Neena won the "Rising Star of the Year" award.

Beyond her film work, Anjana Rajagopalan has composed and produced various music projects. Her song Unadhu Mounam Paladhum Pesum features videos of children with impairments and highlights the relationship between these children and their parents. Her independent single Thedal, which includes a hand-drawn 2D animation video, explores the journey of an artist facing various challenges. She is also an animator and produced Thedal written by Srivathsan S is her 2nd independent single. Thedal had a genderless, hand drawn 2D animation video by Anjana outlining the arc of an artist's creative pursuits and the curveballs thrown at them.

In December 2023, Rajagopalan collaborated with classical dancer and actor Swarnamalya on the project Rakthi at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. This project explored themes of pleasure through a blend of Turkish, Arabic, Carnatic, Hindustani, Marathi folk, and Western classical music.

As a Playback Singer

Year	Song	Film/Album	Music Composer	Language	Co-Singers
2019	"O Variya"	Iruttu	Girishh Gopalakrishnan	Tamil	Syan, Shilpa Natarajan
	"Saayavana Kaatil"	Ethirvinaiyaartru	Vedanth Bharadwaj	Tamil	Vedanth Bharadwaj
2022	"Neeku Gnapakam"	Hathya	Girishh Gopalakrishnan	Tamil
2023	"Yaar née"	Kolai	Girishh Gopalakrishnan	Tamil	M.S Krsna