{{Short description|Indian and American singer, songwriter, and musician}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Ganavya | birth_name = Ganavya Doraiswamy | image = Ganavya performing at Joe's Pub.jpg | caption = Ganavya performing at Joe's Pub in New York | landscape = no | background = person | birth_date = {{birth date|1991|07|21}} | birth_place = New York City, United States | website = {{URL|https://www.ganavya.com/}} }}
'''Ganavya Doraiswamy''' (born 1991), known mononymously as '''ganavya''', is an Indian and American singer, songwriter, and musician. She has released four albums, most recently ''Nilam'' in 2025, and has collaborated with musicians including Quincy Jones, A. R. Rahman, and Esperanza Spalding.
==Biography== Ganavya Doraiswamy was born on July 21, 1991, in New York City, United States.{{r|allmusic-bio|nyt}} When she was 7, her family moved to the town of Senkottai, and then later to Chennai, the capital of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.{{r|line-2024}} In India, Ganavya learned to play jalatharangam from her grandmother Seetha Doraiswamy, and studied Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. Her mother practiced the Pandharpur Wari.{{r|allaboutjazz-bio|nyt}} She has one brother.
Ganavya was homeschooled for portions of her childhood instead prioritizing arts training, but later obtained undergraduate degrees in theater and psychology at Florida International University at 19.{{r|allaboutjazz-bio|line-2024}} She then worked briefly as a rehabilitation counselor at Everglades Correctional Institution in Florida before earning a graduate degree at Berklee College of Music.{{r|line-2024}} After graduating, Ganavya taught a course on South Asian music at Berklee Valencia.{{r|line-2024|allmusic-bio}}
She has a graduate degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry from Harvard University, where she helped lead the Songwrights Apothecary Lab, an experimental music-based research lab founded by Spalding. Her dissertation advisors were Esperanza Spalding and Claire Chase, with committee members including Peter Sellars.{{r|line-2024}}{{r|nyt}}
She co-founded the We Have Voice Collective.{{r|WHV}}
==Career== In 2015, Ganavya recorded ''Aikyam: Onnu'', a collection of jazz standards she translated to her native language of Tamil and abhangs. The album was released in 2018.{{r|line-2024|allmusic-bio}}
In 2024, Ganavya released her second album ''like the sky I've been too quiet'', co-produced by Shabaka Hutchings, and named after a line from a poem by Kaveh Akbar.{{r|songlines-2024|ft}} Her third album ''Daughter of a Temple'' was recorded in 2022 at the Moores Opera House with over 40 featured musicians including Esperanza Spalding, Wayne Shorter, Shabaka Hutchings, Immanuel Wilkins, Rasika Shekar and Vijay Iyer and was released at the end of 2024 on Leiter.{{r|nyt}} The album is a selection of material from a week-long gathering, with initial decisions being made by Ganavya and Spalding, with the final round of mixing being led by Nils Frahm in Funkhaus Berlin.{{r|songlines-2025a}} ''Daughter of a Temple'' was Giles Peterson's Best Album of the Year, and was named by ''The Guardian'' as one of the best global albums of 2024.{{r|BBC6|guardian-2024}} Her fourth album ''Nilam'' was released in 2025, and features vocals in Tamil, English, and Old Marathi.{{r|ft|songlines-2025b}} In 2025, a track from ''Nilam'' titled "Pasayadan" was listed as Barack Obama's favorite tracks of the year.{{r|Obama}} ''Nilam'' was ''Songlines'' Album of the Year.{{r|songlines-best-of-2025}}
Ganavya has collaborated with Quincy Jones, Nils Frahm, Esperanza Spalding, Immanuel Wilkins, A.R. Rahman, Charles Lloyd, Alfredo Rodríguez, Shabaka Hutchings, Joy Harjo, and Lauren Groff. She is a solo vocalist on multiple Grammy Award winning tracks, notably for Songwrights Apothecary Lab, for which she helped create a lab by the same name at Harvard led by Spalding, and for having written and sung the first Tamil lyrics to win a Latin Grammy for Residente's "Antes Que El Mundo Se Acabe". She has a longstanding collaborative relationship with Peter Sellars, most recently having co-created an opera titled ''Nine Jewelled Deer'' with set design by Julie Mehretu.{{r|allmusic-bio}}{{r|nyt}}{{r|Opera}}
==Albums== *''Aikyam: Onnu'' (2018) *''like the sky I've been too quiet'' (2024) *''Daughter of a Temple'' (2024) *''Nilam'' (2025)
==References== <references> <ref name=allmusic-bio>{{allMusic |id=mn0004505541 |title=Ganavya Biography |author=Timothy Monger |access-date=November 17, 2025}}</ref>
<ref name=nyt>{{citation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/arts/music/ganavya-daughter-of-a-temple.html |title=The Singer Whose Work Feels Like Prayer |work=The New York Times |author=Marcus J. Moore |date=2024-11-20 |access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
<ref name=songlines-2024>{{citation |url=https://www.songlines.co.uk/review/like-the-sky-ive-been-too-quiet |url-access=limited |title=ganavya – like the sky I've been too quiet |work=Songlines |author=Charlie Cawood |issue=196 (April 2024) |page=58 |issn=1464-8113 |access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
<ref name=songlines-best-of-2025>{{citation |url=https://www.songlines.co.uk/awards/2025 |title=Songlines Music Awards 2025 |work=Songlines |issue=214 (January 2026) |page=64 |issn=1464-8113 |access-date=2026-01-09 |archive-date=December 16, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251216051715/https://www.songlines.co.uk/awards/2025 |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=songlines-2025a>{{citation |url=https://www.songlines.co.uk/review/daughter-of-a-temple |url-access=limited |title=ganavya – Daughter of a Temple |work=Songlines |author=Charlie Cawood |issue=204 (January 2025) |page=60 |issn=1464-8113 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=December 8, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251208064703/https://www.songlines.co.uk/review/daughter-of-a-temple |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=songlines-2025b>{{citation |url=https://www.songlines.co.uk/review/nilam |url-access=limited |title=ganavya – Nilam |work=Songlines |author=Jane Cornwell |issue=210 (August 2025) |page=67 |issn=1464-8113 |access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
<ref name=ft>{{citation |url=https://www.ft.com/content/efb8bc96-59f1-4d88-b204-db1f6ca65f5b |title=How the singer Ganavya infused jazz with spiritual soul |work=The Financial Times |author=David Honigmann |date=2025-09-27 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=November 3, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251103233421/https://www.ft.com/content/efb8bc96-59f1-4d88-b204-db1f6ca65f5b |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=line-2024>{{citation |url=https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/ganavya-all-life-learning-finding-wisdom-to-stand-still |title=All life is learning: How ganavya found the wisdom to stand still |type=interview |work=The Line of Best Fit |author=Alan Pedder |date=2024-03-18 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=April 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250420132734/https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/ganavya-all-life-learning-finding-wisdom-to-stand-still |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=allaboutjazz-bio>{{citation |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/ganavya-doraiswamy |title=Jazz Musicians: Ganavya Doraiswamy |work=All About Jazz |date=2019-02-15 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=September 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240927180407/https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/ganavya-doraiswamy |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=BBC6>{{citation |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002628d |title=BBC6 Music Gilles Peterson's Album of the Year |type=interview |work=BBC |author=Gilles Peterson |date=2024-11-15 |access-date=2026-01-09 |archive-date=December 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241221103502/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002628d |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=Obama>{{citation |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/obamas-song-list-features-pasayadan-modern-rendition-of-13th-century-marathi-abhang/articleshow/126081594.cms |title=Obama's songfest features Pasayadan |type=interview |work=The Times of India |author=Sharmila Ganesan |date=2025-12-20 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=December 22, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251222103933/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/obamas-song-list-features-pasayadan-modern-rendition-of-13th-century-marathi-abhang/articleshow/126081594.cms |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=WHV>{{citation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/arts/music/we-have-voice-jazz-women-metoo.html |title=Women Fighting Sexism in Jazz Have a Voice. And Now, a Code of Conduct |type=interview |work=The New York Times |author=Giovanni Russonello |date=2018-04-30 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=April 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401153059/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/arts/music/we-have-voice-jazz-women-metoo.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=Opera>{{citation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/arts/design/sellars-mehretu-arles-aix-deer-opera.html |title=In a New Opera, Violence Against Women Is Not Just the Stuff of Fables |type=interview |work=The New York Times |author=Laura van Straaten |date=2025-07-17 |access-date=2025-11-17 |archive-date=September 30, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250930173751/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/arts/design/sellars-mehretu-arles-aix-deer-opera.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name=guardian-2024>{{citation |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/11/10-best-global-albums-of-2024 |title=The 10 best global albums of 2024 |work=The Guardian |author=Ammar Kalia |date=2024-12-11 |access-date=2026-01-09}}</ref> </references>
==External links== *{{discogs artist|artist=5921752-Ganavya|name=Ganavya}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Living people Category:1991 births Category:21st-century Indian women singers Category:Indian women singer-songwriters Category:21st-century American women singers Category:American women singer-songwriters Category:Singers from New York City Category:Florida International University alumni Category:Berklee College of Music alumni Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Women Carnatic singers Category:Tamil-language singers Category:English-language Indian singers Category:Marathi-language singers Category:Singers from Chennai