Thomson Andrews

Thomson Andrews (born 25 September 1987 in Mumbai, India) is a singer, songwriter, performer, recording artist, actor and one of the newer contemporary Indian playback singers. He has been certified by Trinity College of Music, London as a Performing Vocalist and has trained briefly in Hindustani classical singing from Pandit Krishna Bhat. Apart from live performances,^[1][2] he also sings on and arranges voicings for film playback songs^[3][4][5][6] & background scores. Thomson has sung film songs and ad jingles^[7] in several Indian languages - Hindi,^[8] Tamil,^[9] Telugu, Malayalam,^[10] Kannada,^[11] Tulu,^[12] Marathi,^[13] Bengali and has several International ad jingles to his credit for products in Kenya,^[14] Tanzania,^[15] Nigeria,^[16] West Indies and more. He also sings in foreign languages like Swahili,^[17] Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish and more. He is known for his associations with music projects such as MTV Coke Studio (India) Season 2, MTV Unplugged (India) Seasons 1 and 2 and his recent indie debut R&B single People Ain't Things^[18][19] from his upcoming R&B album being produced by Candy D'souza, mixed by Chester Misquitta and mastered by Grammy Award winning mastering engineer Reuben Cohen from Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood. He is one of the few Indian indie artists whose music has been featured on national television networks like MTV Indies, VH1 India and 9XO and on the radio station Radio One (India). Thomson lends his voice for Walt Disney's animated film Hindi Dubbs and has sung for Disney's cartoon series The Jungle Book 2, Winnie The Pooh, Cars, Little Mermaid and more. He is also known as a fashionably trendsetting musician^[20] for his quirky style, funky hair-do's and glasses. Thomson performed for Vogue India's Women Empowerment initiative #VogueEmpower last year 2014. Besides his solo accolades, projects,^[21] Motown, R&B, funk music tribute concerts^[22] and collaborations, he is part of a popular Indian A cappella ensemble called Raaga Trippin'^[23][24] with whom he creates unique renditions of cover songs as well as originals and does live shows with.

Early life

Thomson's genesis in music began very early on, when he sang at school competitions and was an active part of the church choir. Being a Roman Catholic, his family had very strong roots into Gospel music & hence he’s been musically inclined towards its relative genres blues, soul & R&B music. Thomson was born in Mumbai in a liberal South Indian family with his father hailing from Kerala and his mother from Chennai and has an elder sister; thus possessing the musical genes of two rich South Indian cultures embedded within him. His catapulting into the world of music however, began at a gospel talent show that he won at the age of 17 back in 2005. He started working at an early age amidst his college schedules, taking up Science as his major subject. Andrew had no intuition of being a full-time musician at that time. He began his corporate career and worked for four years, building a collective experience in Auditing, Human Resources, Inventory, Contact centres & more.To pursue his musical ambitions further, Thomson switched to teaching in schools as a music teacher & conducting vocal workshops in colleges as a western music faculty in the Arts department; as by then he had started doing shows and concert performances and aimed to eventually fulfill his dream of a full-time career doing what he loves the most; and Music was his choice.

Career

He started his career working with A. R. Rahman when he first performed at the Indian Premier League awards show with him via his choir conductor Celeste Cordoe & his mentor Clinton Cerejo. Post which he worked with ad composer Rupert Fernandes who used his voice on many ad jingles for products like Nestlé, HCL,^[25]Volkswagen^[26] and more. Post the IPL show he worked with A. R. Rahman on numerous film projects, songs, background scores via Clinton Cerejo & Suzanne D'Mello and has lent additional vocals on many notable film projects.

Thomson started off in Bollywood by lending his voice to numerous movie songs as an additional vocalist for all music directors and has sung on many notable projects and jingles for various eminent ad jingle composers in the advertising industry too. His credits for singing and vocal arrangements are also mentioned in many of the recently released Bollywood film productions from last year 2014 to the current year 2015 like Dhoom 3, D-Day, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Bang Bang, Happy New Year, Hasee Toh Phasee, Byomkesh Bakshi (2015), Bombay Velvet (2015) and more upcoming films due to release soon. He has sung playback songs "Bach ke Bakshi" for the 2015 movie Byomkesh Bakshi for music director Sneha Khanwalkar, "Shehar Mera" for the movie One By Two for music directors Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, "Rumani", a duet with Shalmali Kholgade in the movie Akaash Vani for music director Hitesh Sonik. Apart from Bollywood films, he has also sung playback songs in South Indian films for music director M. Ghibran "Saridhaana Saridhaana" from the Tamil movie Amara Kaaviyam, "Rajadhi Rajanappa" from the Telugu film Run Raja Run, "O Pagol Mon" in the Bengali movie Dashami^[27] and "Kanna Muche" for Tulu Film Aamait Asal Eemait Kusal.

Throughout his journey as a full-time vocalist, Thomson has had the privilege to be associated with many international music projects and has sung on the background score of the Oscar-nominated Hollywood film '127 Hours' for music maestro A. R. Rahman, has lent additional vocals on the song Satyameva Jayathe (song) from the international album SuperHeavy for maestro A. R. Rahman involving Mick Jagger, Joss Stone and Damian Marley. He has also worked with Indian Hollywood film maker Mira Nair along with music director Vishal Bhardwaj on songs for the musical adaptation of her film 'Monsoon Wedding'. He has performed in an international opera 'Madama Butterfly' including cast members from Austria, Korea and America staged at National Centre for the Performing Arts (India) and has musically directed adaptations of the musicals Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Oliver Twist staged in Mumbai and played the role of Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist. He performed with the Cadenza Kantori choir at The Rottenburg am Neckar Festival of Choirs in Germany and at Taizé Community in Burgundy, France in his early 20's.

He currently performs within India and globally and is associated with several live acts and Bollywood music concerts with other Indian artists. In 2015, Thomson as part of RaagaTrippin; hosted the red carpet event at the Radio Mirchi Music Awards 2015 and also performed at the Global Indian Music Academy Awards 2015 with music director Pritam Chakraborty. As RaagaTrippin, he also performed at the Indian Premier League opening ceremony 2015 with music director Pritam Chakraborty.

Thomson launched his debut single, People Ain’t Things, in April 2014.^[28]

References