Mridula DESAI has had the privilege and opportunity of performing at The Royal Albert Hall, London, in MAR 2005, in the prestigious event, Gujarat, A Celebration, organised by the Asian Music Circuit, UK, for the Internationally acclaimed Trilok GURTU group, and among the others were Praful DAVE and others.


Mridula is known for her quality of folk and other specialised numbers, which include vintage classics of the Gujarati language, stage, and old Hindi songs.


The programme at TRAH was highly appreciated by the full house audience, and those viewing it on Sony Entertainment Television telecasts in UK, USA, the Middle East.

On this success, she was once again invited as part of the Trilok GURTU group, for the inaugural show at The Perth Concert Hall, Perth, Scotland, in 2005 SEP, in front of a mostly Scottish, English and non Indian audience, who gave standing ovations to the fusion, the variations of Hindi and other Indian language songs, etc., well composed by Trilok GURTU.

Reference
http://www.trilokgurtu.net/press.htm

Excerpts

The programme built almost imperceptibly from Stewart's solo Queen Among The Heather, via a sextet fronted by Mridula Desai that swapped eight-bar solos across continents to music for 18 musicians that included a glorious funked-up Killiecrankie before a pipe tune from Rajasthan arranged for an alternative 18, including Tunder Jegede's Kora, a samba band from Perth College and two members of the Herald Angel-winning Vale of Atholl Pipe Band.

There were smaller delights too: Margaret Bennett's unaccompanied Gaelic waulking songs sparring with Gurtu's own native mouth music; Pete Clark's Repertoire of Niel Gow fiddle tunes spiced with Kora and Carlo Cantini's electric violin; Fraser Anderson's specially-written The Fair Maid Smiles given wider resonances by an obligato from Desai, the Indian singer proving to be a superb musician.


So it has become a habit of hers to be where some land mark event takes place, like, in 2002 DEC Mridula performed at the Seventieth Anniversary of BBC World Service, at the World Concert in Mumbai, in 1998 AUG performed at the Central Hall of Parliament at the closing ceremonies of the Fiftieth Anniversary of India's Independence celebrations, and in 1987 AUG was invited by All India Radio to sing at the Forty Fifth Anniversary of the Quit India Movement at August Kranti Maidan, Mumbai.

Further references

http://www.amc.org.uk/news/2002/worldservice.htm
http://cities.expressindia.com/archivefullstory.php?newsid=34897&creation_date=2002-11-12
http://cities.expressindia.com/archivefullstory.php?newsid=35929&creation_date=2002-11-22

Brief background

Starting her musical career after coming to Mumbai from Kolkata. Her initial training was under Pandit Pradip Chatterjee. Mridula has sung on stage, radio, TV for films, for cassettes, in many languages under many renowned music directors.


By educational qualification, Mridula an M.A. First Class with Honours, from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, in Political Science.

By profession, a Vocalist, First Class, in Light music, Devotionals, Folk and so on. Her repertoire is extensive.

Mridula is a singer since over 20 years, and has extensively sung in Gujarati, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Himachali, Kashmiri, among other Indian languages.

She has given her unusually powerful voice to jingles, alaps, private albums, sangeet sandhya programmes, in small gatherings, especially leading folk dance items, inspiring and motivating the dancers to give more than their rehearsed routine.

Leading college and school music and dance masters in Mumbai have relied on Mridula by default to give their students the best vocal back up to give their best steps forward.

Mridula has also done programmes in over twenty cities across the USA, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Jersey, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, etc., toured Nairobi, Kenya, London, Muscat, Durban, Antwerp, Cairo, Perth, Scotland, for short programmes, and recently completed a fifty plus day tour of London, Leicester, and other cities in UK, and a short trip to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

In India, she has performed in Mumbai, Surat, Hyderabad, Indore, Pune, Varanasi, Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Kolhapur, Bangalore, Kolkata, etc.

Gujarati audiences can listen to her singing in the films, Chundari Ni Laj, and Dhire Dhire Dhaladu Chorayu.

Hindi Films as playback singer : Dillagi, Hera Pheri