ABOUT RANJANA

Ranjana Ghatak

Ranjana was born and raised in London, and started learning North Indian Singing whilst growing up in a musical household. She studied with Indian musicians in London, including Tripti Das, Manisha Smith, Nitai Dasgupta, Gauri Bapat (Bharitya Vidya Bhavan) and Fida Hussain Khan. After hearing her favourite vocalist - Padmabhushan Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty perform in London as a teenager, she decided to pursue her passion and learning for singing by going to train in Shrutinandan, Ajoyji’s singing school in Kolkata. Since then she has continued to study and visit the school and has taken part in a teacher training course in Leeds run by Ajoyji that was based on his key approaches to teaching Indian Vocal music.

She released her solo album in 2020 with Mercury-nominated producer/musicians Liran Donin (double bass) and Jack Ross (guitar) titled - The Butterfly Effect. Collaborations include LPO, RPO, Nitin Sawhney, Jesse Bannister, Jason Singh, James Yorkston and Jon Thorne. Composing credits include a vocal piece for 130 singers inspired by Pandit Ravi Shankar’s opera (Royal Opera House/Southbank Centre/Krishna Avanti School) and a Raga inspired choral piece for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. She lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2018 till the end of 2020 performing and teaching for the Chitresh Das Institute and the Ali Akbar College of Music.

She was invited to solo on the opening song for the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in July 2022. She was one of 8 musicians selected on the Making Tracks Residency in Sep 2022 which created new works and toured the UK. She was invited to premiere a piece with LA based composer Juhi Bansal, as part of Yale University’s Chamber Music Festival last year and she recently sang on the same line up as Robert Plant for the Bert Jansch Tribute at the Royal Festival Hall with James Yorkston.

Ranjana is an experienced teacher and workshop leader and has been teaching for the last 18 years and runs workshops across the UK including the Barbican, Southbank Centre and Kings Place. She launched a Vocal learning membership titled Swaranjali in March 2024 - a space to learn and develop your voice with like minded individuals.

Ranjana is working on new material that focuses on North Indian semi-classical and devotional pieces for Voice, Esraj, Tabla and Harp.