East Meets West
The eclectic music of Manisha Shahane
“VIRGINIA” the University of Virginia Alumni News Magazine, Spring 2004 Issue

The singer-songwriter Manisha Shahane grew up performing in two very different musical traditions. As a youth in Southside Virginia, she ranged between Western tunes and Hindi film songs, often accompanied by her father on tabla, Indian-style drums. On family visits to India, her paternal grandmother taught her the Saptha Swarams, the seven-note Indian classical equivalent of the Western scale, while her aunts taught her to read and write in Marathi and Hindi.

These divergent cultural threads weave throughout on her debut album, Peace In Progress, which is rooted in folk, jazz, Western classical and Indian traditions. It features Shahane on voice and piano, Blake Newman on acoustic bass and Jerry Leake on tabla/percussion. Notable Boston-area musicians also make appearances. The Marathi language of her youth also makes an appearance.

Her music features "complex rhythms and well-constructed melody lines Š with unexpected harmonic twists Š and [a] flair for meaningful lyrics," says Northeast Performer.

The fledging solo artist studied economics and international relations at U.Va., but always made space for music, recording and touring with the female a cappella group Virginia Belles, for which she also wrote and arranged original compositions. During graduate school at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Shahane continued to perform with a cappella groups and fronted a rock band. Before moving to the Boston area, she was a lead singer with the rock band Distraction in the Washington, D.C., area, appearing at venues such as The Bayou.

These days, Shahane performs her original material with her own band, Manishamusic, plays with several Boston-area groups, and sings with the Grammy-nominated Chorus pro Musica. Samples of her material can be heard on www.manishamusic.com.

A portion of the sales from Peace In Progress will benefit the Virginia Belles if purchased directly from Shahane at P.O. Box 391753, Cambridge, MA 01239. Please make the check payable to Manisha Shahane in the amount of $13.