Sandipan’s (pronounced Shondipon) came into public limelight with the recent release of his debut album SHONABONDHU (©Ektaar 2004)

The 12 folk tunes in SHONABONDHU are by legendary and timeless poet-philosophers of Bangladspirit esh such as Fakir Lalon Shain, Hasan Raja and Ram Prasad Sen with more-recent compositions by Abdul Gafur Hali, MN Akhter et al. The selection also showcases a specially-collected track in the local dialect of a near-extinct community living in the southeastern island of Saint Martins. It is titled Modhu koi koi and surprisingly has a lilt reminiscent of tribal melodies of the nearby Hill Tracts.

The entire album was excellently conceived and composed by the singer-songwriter, music-arranger Bappa Mazumder. Bappa infused a lively east-west rhythmic style into the album that especially highlights the agility and mellifluous quality of Sandipan’s voice and renders the age-old melodies in the album in a current flavour. The song from the album that’s been a big hit with listeners is the title track Shonabondhu itself. Shephali Ghosh -the legendary queen-of-folk - had first popularized the song in the mid ’70s. It was then arranged in a traditional 3x3 jhumur-taal but Bappa beefed up the current version with a funkier 4x4 kaharba and gave it a whole new life.

Sandipan received his early musical education under the tutelage of the late Ustad Miheer Kanti Lal from his hometown Chittaging. Later at Kolkata’s “Banichakra” he received vocal training in Rabindrasangeet from Dijen Mukherjee. Today in both Dhaka and Kolkata he receives tremendous acclaim at his live performances.Besides his songster prowess Sandipan is also a theater actor, and as a member of the famed Nagorik Theatre Group, he regularly performs, both as actor and musician, in popular stage plays, such as Dewan Gazi’r Kissa, Rokto Korobi, Coperniker Captain etc.Sandipan’s future plans include becoming a playback singer for films, creating his own original musical works, as well as putting together an album featuring Rabindrasangeet.

His decision to work on a folk album was based on his belief that Bangladeshi folk music is highly sophisticated and generally popular. In order to take this music to the realm of global music, he has adapted the rhythmic structure of the songs presented in SHONABONDHU, while he has adroitly retained their basic melodic essence. By introducing a more westernized upbeat feel he hopes these songs will generate the interest of a wider global audience. And as a first step to this end, his label Ektaar has licensed Virgin Records (India) to distribute and sell SHONABONDHU throughout their Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.