Profile
Shamir Tandon is a very passionate entrepreneur. He quit a plum corporate job as the Country Head at EMI Virgin to pursue his true passion for music.
JOURNEY
Even when young, Shamir was always singing and composing in school & college festivals. He also went on to do his MBA and Cost Accountancy and started his career in Merchant Banking. It was during this successful tenure that he decided to take up his passion for music and turn it into a full fledged career. Shamir is the first musician in his family. He isn’t formally trained but makes up for it by constantly learning and exploring different genres of music.
WORKING WITH LEGENDS
Shamir has been blessed to have legends sing under his baton. He is the only music director who has composed for Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Manna Dey, Jagjit Singh, Bhupinder Singh, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and many more.
MANAGING DIRECTOR TO MUSIC DIRECTOR
Shamir started working with EMI Virgin in 1998. In his 9 year stint, he grew from a Marketing Manager to a Country Head. He played a key role in marketing and distributing global acts like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra to Norah Jones, Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. He was instrumental in bringing down to India bands like Deep Purple, Rolling Stone, MLTR and even Richard Clayderman. Having spent 12 years of his corporate life before diving into music full time, it allowed him to see the best of both worlds.
JINGLES AND NON FILM ALBUMS
Shamir has composed more than 150 ad jingles for popular brands such as Ambuja Cement, Idea, Big Bazaar, ICICI, Pepsi, Samsonite, SBI, LIC, Airtel and more.
Shamir curated and composed the No. 1 album of 2006-07, Asha and Friends where he got Asha Bhosle to sing with Sanjay Dutt, Urmila Matondkar, Brett Lee etc.
He also composed the anthem for the 2007 Cricket World Cup where he made 11 leading singers sing together in one song. He was the first one to release an anti-piracy song for which the top singers of Bollywood collaborated together. His non-film album for the top four winners of Indian Idol 6, comprised five original tracks and four special renditions of the song “Pal” for each of the winners.
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
Shamir has also collaborated with the boy band Blue for the song “One Love” which featured Abhishek Bachchan and Bipasha Basu. He brought together Enrique Iglesias and Sunidhi Chauhan for the track “Heartbeat” which was featured on Enrique’s album.
Shamir has also worked with European artists for the film Bluffmaster and has worked with Jay Sean. He’s also got Brett Lee and Robbie Williams to sing with Asha Bhosle.
BOLLYWOOD
Shamir’s first break in Bollywood was the National award winning film Page 3. After the success of Page 3, he also composed for Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate and Traffic Signal. Apart from this, he has also worked with big names like Balaji, UTV Motion Pictures, Disney, Ashtavinayak, Shemaroo, Sahara, Viacom 18, Percept, Sangeet Sivan, Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Leela Bhansali etc. His versatiity ranges from the thought provoking “Lamha Lamha Zindagi Hai” to the energetic qawwali “O Sikander” which was one of the biggest hits of 2006.
CONSULTATION
Apart from composing music, Shamir also consults for many brands, production houses and agencies. Currently, he’s consulting for Universal Music Group for their A&R and digital music space. He was also responsible for artist repertoire and music consultancy for Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s album Back to Love which won Mirchi and GIMA awards.