Amit Trivedi, born on 8 April 1979, is an Indian composer, singer and lyricist. He began his career composing for theatre productions, advertising jingles and independent music projects before making his film debut with the Hindi film Aamir (2008). He has won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction and has received repeated nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director.
He was born in Bandra, Mumbai, to a family originally from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. During his school years he became interested in electronic musical instruments. While in college he started a band, Om the Fusion Band, with Amartya Bobo Rahut, Shriram Iyer and members Ram and Vish; the group played local gigs and small shows and released an album through Times Music.
He also pursued independent work, composing for Hindi and Gujarati theatre, writing background music for television shows, doing programming for Marathi films, performing live and playing dandiya shows. He composed advertising jingles for brands such as McDonald’s and Airtel. On the recommendation of Anurag Kashyap, he was brought in for Raj Kumar Gupta’s directorial debut Aamir, and he and Gupta worked on aligning the soundtrack with the film’s narrative, which drew positive critical attention.
He has described the soundtrack of Dev.D (2009) as a turning point. It won him the Filmfare R. D. Burman Award for New Music Talent and the Best Background Score award at the 55th Filmfare Awards, and he received his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, before winning the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. He then wrote the score for Wake Up Sid (2009), which included his composition “Iktara”.
In 2009 Anshu Sharma offered him the chance to compose the team anthem “Game for More” for the cricket team Royal Challengers Bangalore, and he wrote the title track of the UTV Bindaas reality show Big Switch. He did the music and background score for Aisha (2010), singing “Suno Aisha” and “Sham”. His songs and score for Ishaqzaade (2012) and Lootera (2013) brought his second and third Filmfare nominations for Best Music Director, and the soundtrack of Vikas Bahl’s acclaimed Queen (2014) his fourth.
He earned three consecutive nominations for Best Music Director for Udta Punjab (2016), Secret Superstar (2017) and Manmarziyaan (2018). He won Best Song at the News18 Reel Movie Awards for “Naina Da Kya Kasoor” from Andhadhun (2018), in which he also sang “Laila Laila”, and in 2019 Power Brands honoured him with the Best Music Director of the Year award for Andhadhun at the Bollywood Film Journalists Awards. He had two further consecutive Filmfare nominations, for Haseen Dillruba (2021) and Uunchai (2022).
He composed the official anthem of the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, with lyrics by Kausar Munir and vocals by Sharvi Yadav and Anand Bhaskar, and the title track of the television show Aaj Ki Raat Hai Zindagi, hosted by Amitabh Bachchan. He composed the music for the 2018 film Kedarnath and has made appearances on MTV shows. He continues to release independent music under his label AT Azaad.
Featured image: A recording studio mixing console (file photo, 2016; not a photo of Amit Trivedi). Photo by Dayron Villaverde from Miami, USA, licensed under CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
