After 25 years performing across the world, Dubai-based Carnatic vocalist Rajani Shridhar releases a body of work that is closer to a sustained breath than a song.
◆ DUBAI,There is a quiet shift happening inside the UAE’s wellness scene, and it is not coming from the usual places. Not from a new gym chain, not from a cold plunge studio, not from another app. It is coming from a small studio in Dubai where one of the city’s most respected Carnatic vocalists has spent the last several years recording something the local market has not really seen before.
That work is called NaadaDhyaan, which loosely translates to meditation through sound. It launches publicly on Saturday, 9 May 2026 at BHUB in Burjuman, with a live guided listening session and a small ceremony for around 70 to 100 invited guests.
The album is fully improvised. There are no lyrics. There are no songs in the conventional sense. What is on the recording is the human voice, breath, and melody, drawn from the deep therapeutic side of Indian classical music and shaped into something a listener can sit inside rather than play in the background.
A practitioner, not just a performer
Rajani Shridhar has called the UAE home for over 25 years. Trained in the hallowed traditions of Carnatic music, she studied therapeutic application of Indian music under the renowned Mrs. Rajam Shanker, and that training quietly redirected the purpose of her singing. She began applying the work clinically, offering vocal therapy for Parkinson’s disease patients and volunteering at the Rashid Pediatric Therapy Centre for Special Needs.
“It is not just an album release. It is an experience that everyone should go through once in their life, and a practice that should be embedded into your day-to-day.”
AN EARLY LISTENER, DUBAI
Her Samarpan concert series, supported by the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi and the Consulate General of India in Dubai, has raised resources for underprivileged children. She holds the title of Cultural Ambassador, conferred during her teaching tenure at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. In 2021 she received the International Women’s Excellence Award.
NaadaDhyaan is, in some ways, the studio version of work she has been doing live, and quietly, for years.
What sets the album apart
- Improvised Carnatic vocal work, performed live and recorded with traditional accompaniment, with no fixed melodic structure.
- Guided narration in multiple languages, including Arabic, so the practice is genuinely accessible across the UAE’s linguistic and cultural mix.
- A therapeutic intent rather than a commercial one. The album is designed to be listened to in stillness, not consumed as background.
It is also a family project. NaadaDhyaan has been built alongside Rajani’s husband Shridhar and their daughter, with the entire effort grounded in their Tamil Nadu roots and the small spiritual ecosystem the family has built around their work in Dubai. That value system shows up in the recording itself: there is a discipline to the music that reads less as performance and more as practice.
About Rajani Shridhar
Rajani Shridhar is a Carnatic vocalist based in Dubai. Trained in the hallowed traditions of South Indian classical music and mentored in music therapy by Mrs. Rajam Shanker, she has spent over two and a half decades performing internationally and applying her craft to charitable, therapeutic, and community causes. Her work has spanned concert stages, special needs centres, hospitals, and now, with NaadaDhyaan, the daily listening practice of audiences across the UAE and beyond.
