41 Facts About Nitin Sawhney

Nitin Sawhney is a British musician, producer and composer.

Nitin Sawhney is active in the promotion of arts and cultural matters, is chair of the PRS Foundation, on the senate of the Ivor Novello Academy, on the board of trustees of theatre company Complicite, and is a patron of numerous film festivals, venues, and educational institutions.

Nitin Sawhney is a recipient of 7 honorary doctorates from British universities, is a fellow of LIPA and the Southbank University, an Associate of Sadler's Wells, sits on the board for British theatre company Complicite.

In 2017, Nitin Sawhney received the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award.

Nitin Sawhney accepted it for his father, who he said had died regretting that Sawhney had rejected the OBE.

Since 2014, the publishing interest of Nitin Sawhney's catalogue has been represented by Reservoir Media Management.

Nitin Sawhney was raised in Rochester, Kent, England, by first-generation British Indian parents.

Nitin Sawhney moved to London, where he met up with old university friend Sanjeev Bhaskar; together they created the comedy team The Secret Asians.

Nitin Sawhney has received 17 major national awards for his album work and is a recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award.

In 1999 Nitin Sawhney released his fourth Gold-selling album, Beyond Skin, on London's Outcaste Records, which took a prestigious Mercury Music Prize nomination and won Nitin Sawhney the coveted South Bank Show Award.

Nitin Sawhney produced Anoushka Shankar's 2013 Grammy nominated album Traces of You, featuring Norah Jones, and produced Jools Hollands' 2021 album Pianola.

Nitin Sawhney has written music for a wide variety of contexts, from dark, high-tension drama to light hearted animatronics.

Nitin Sawhney has been commissioned to write the scores for a number of different projects.

In 2006, Nitin Sawhney composed a new symphony to accompany Franz Osten's 1929 silent film, A Throw of Dice, which premiered with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London.

In 2001, Nitin Sawhney composed "Neural Circuits" for the Britten Sinfonia In 2002, he worked with Akram Khan and Anish Kapoor, scoring the music to Khan's choreographed work Kaash, which toured worldwide between 2002 and 2003.

In 2004, Nitin Sawhney was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to compose a new piece for their Harmony Project.

Nitin Sawhney has continued to work with Akram Khan on Bahok, Vertical Road and iTMOi.

Nitin Sawhney produced the music for the Ninja Theory video games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

Nitin Sawhney scored Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's book, Midnight's Children, released October 2012 and Vara: A Blessing and Japan in a Day.

Nitin Sawhney scored a five episode series for the BBC's Natural History Department called Wonders of the Monsoon which had its debut airing with the BBC in 2014.

Nitin Sawhney subsequently scored Andy Serkis' directorial debut Breathe, which went on general release in October 2017, and Serkis' interpretation of The Jungle Book, titled Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle for Netflix, released in November 2018.

Nitin Sawhney worked again with Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on a production based on the life of Manga creator, Tezuka and has worked with Akram Khan for iTMOi as part of the centenary Rites of Spring celebrations at Sadler's Wells.

Nitin Sawhney directed and produced Indelible a multi-installation experience at Sadler's Wells as part of their "NoBody" programme.

Nitin Sawhney's acting credits include the award-winning radio and BBC TV series, Goodness Gracious Me, for which he received a Sony Award as performer and writer, Meera Syal's Radio 4 mini-series, Masala FM and Confluence with Akram Khan.

Nitin Sawhney has written articles for UK broadsheets and appeared as a commentator on the BBC's Newsnight Review, Newsnight and HardTalk.

Nitin Sawhney appeared as an industry expert in two series of the TV series Guitar Star for Sky Arts, as well as appearing in and working as music director on the Sky Arts series Tony Visconti's Unsigned Heroes, which aired in 2017.

Nitin Sawhney has remixed a wide variety of artists, including Sting, Natacha Atlas, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jeff Beck, Julian Lloyd Webber, Tina Grace and Paul McCartney.

Nitin Sawhney collaborated with McCartney on a song called "My Soul", which appeared on Sawhney's London Undersound album, and on various Robert Miles projects such as Miles Gurtu and Organik as well as with American singer-songwriter Jacob Golden.

Nitin Sawhney produced several songs on Cheb Mami's album Dellali.

Nitin Sawhney co-produced the second album from songwriter Get Cape.

Nitin Sawhney co-produced an album by the semi-classical all female string quartet Bond.

Nitin Sawhney's band has toured the world for decades and Sawhney has performed and scored in recent years with international orchestras to silent films, most notably Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger, Franz Osten's A Throw of Dice and Naruse's Yogoto No Yume all for the London Symphony Orchestra.

Nitin Sawhney has conducted both the London Symphony Orchestra and the Singapore Festival Orchestra and wrote his first choral piece for London Contemporary Voices Choir.

Nitin Sawhney performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in September 2014 where he showcased tracks from his tenth studio album, Dystopian Dream.

Nitin Sawhney musically directed a tribute to the rock musician Jack Bruce at London's Roundhouse in October 2015, and was musical director for the show Tony Visconti: A Life in Music at London's Union Chapel in 2017.

Nitin Sawhney, given his classical background, is an experienced and established DJ, mixing styles from Afro-beat and Dubstep to Asian breakbeat and drum 'n' bass.

Much of Nitin Sawhney's attention remains focused on the areas of education and community building, accepting the role of Artist in Residence for no less than five separate performing arts organisations across Great Britain and Asia.

Nitin Sawhney joined Sir George Martin as a patron of the national music college Access to Music, and he is patron of the Raindance East Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards.

Nitin Sawhney appears regularly as an arts and current affairs commentator on topical discussion and news programs such as the BBC's Newsnight, Newsnight Review, and HARDtalk.

Nitin Sawhney has written for UK national broadsheet newspapers: The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and The Observer.

In June 2019 Nitin Sawhney was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.