Musician, producer, composer and synthesizer player Sanaya Ardeshir, known in the music world as Sandunes was "pulled in early on,” in September 2022, to provide the sound for India in Fashion, the inaugural show at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre that opened on March 31, 2023. The event, reportedly the first-of-its-kind, showcased over 140 costumes documenting India’s impact on global fashion in different rooms arranged by theme, style, designer and timelines. The musician and her collaborator-engineer Krishna Jhaveri provided the sound for the various show areas of the exhibit. In the beginning, "the details were under wraps… When we started it was unclear what we would wind up with.”
Sanaya Ardeshir: "composing for a stage"
Speaking to Parsiana on June 14, the musician said she had to upskill herself to be able to do justice to the various themes and dimensions of the rooms. "The YSL (Yves Saint Laureant) exhibits had to have different theme music from say the colonial collections, or the room where they depicted Indian impact on Dutch fashions.” Their work began with composing the music based on the brief from the creative directors involved with the themes. "We were composing for a ‘stage’… the music had to transport the viewers to the period depicted.” Then followed the mixing of the sounds, on which Jhaveri took the lead. Recording on pianos and synthesizers started in February, followed by parleys with the acousticians as to where the speakers needed to be placed, followed by hectic testing, she laughed. "We gave them an elegant solution ultimately,” she stated.
The aesthetic value of the exhibition was so detailed that they went all out to create a "transformational experience,” stated the musician. The limitation was that the rooms were not of even size. "It was not like you could place the speakers at random…They had to be positioned such that there was ‘even’ sound wherever you stood in the gallery.”
The artiste has been releasing new albums regularly since 2012. Her last production was titled Nowhere to stand (2021) which Amazon Music describes as "a brainy plot of glitch-y, melodic dance beats with powerful yet accessible voices. "I play all kinds of sets, I DJ (disc jockey), and I also play live,” she had told us in 2016 (see "Sandunes’ sounds,” Parsiana, September 21, 2016). From jazz and blues, to London underground sounds, her music "blends various organic and electronic elements into an exotic hybrid zone with a unique South Asian feel.”
Ardeshir spoke to Parsiana on the eve of her departure to the US. She messaged a few days later: "We have come to Los Angeles to pursue some new opportunities in music and sound studies… we’re here until the end of the year and then will need to take a call on where it makes sense to plant my feet! Move is a big word, but we’re hoping to make it feel like home wherever we end up going!”