Shankar Mahadevan

Shankar Mahadevan is an Indian music composer and singer. He is a part of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio team that composes for Indian films and a playback singer. He is a four time winner of the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer. He is also the founder of the Shankar Mahadevan Academy which conducts online music lessons in Indian music for students across the globe.

After working for a while for Leading Edge Systems, Shankar ventured into the field of music.[4] He earned his first award as a playback singer in a Tamil movie, collaborating with A. R. Rahman and winning a National Film Award for his song in Kandukondain Kandukondain. A prominent star in the Kodambakkam film industry, he gained further recognition upon the release of his first music album, Breathless, in 1998. The title track of the album had been prepared in such a manner that it is sung without any break, so it appears to be sung in one breath and thus the title "Breathless". He later got into music direction and became a part of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio, composing music for Hindi films.

Before his entire film music sojourn started, Shankar Mahadevan was part of the Indo-Swedish fusion jazz band Mynta.

He has sung in many films for A. R. Rahman, Anu Malik and other music directors, performing songs like "Urvashi Take It Easy" from Humse Hai Muqabla (1995), "I Love You" fromAuzaar (1997), "Kay Sera Sera" from Pukar (2000) and many more songs in the nineties. Most of the songs sung by him in Hindi are composed by him (as part of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy). He has sung numerous songs in Tamil for a multitude of composers, ranging from veterans to newcomers. He has also sung in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi and other regional languages. In Marathi he has sung for noted composers like Shridhar Phadke and Ajay-Atul.

He enjoyed a successful run with the fusion jazz band SILK with Louis Banks on keyboards, Sivamani on percussion, Sridhar Parthasarathy on mridangam and Karl Peters on bass guitar.

Shankar Mahadevan has also provided vocals for several songs by the band Remember Shakti, which features musicians including, Musician Zakir Hussain, Musician Chandan Sharma, Musician John McLaughlin, U. Srinivas and V. Selvaganesh. He was music director for the famous "School Chale Hum" song on Doordarshan.

He was a mentor on Zee TV's musical reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009.

He is a team captain, judge, and mentor on Star Plus's musical show Music Ka Maha Muqqabla for the team Shankar's Rockstars; his team won Music Ka Maha Muqqabala 2010.