Spoorthi Rao

Spoorthi Rao is a rising star in Carnatic music whose journey, for all its remarkable swiftness, has been shaped by the most enduring traditions of the art form. For the past decade, she has been under the tutelage of the renowned Ranjani-Gayatri duo, a training that has deepened her understanding of the form and given her a strong foundation in both its technical demands and its spiritual depth. Though still in her early twenties, she has already established herself as a serious classical vocalist whose work commands respect well beyond her years.

Spoorthi was born in Bangalore and spent part of her early childhood in Arkansas before her family eventually moved to Chennai to help nurture her talent. Her love of music came first from her mother, who would hum songs to her as a child and fill the household with the voices of Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and the legendary M.S. Subbalakshmi. Little Spoorthi began humming tunes before she could even speak, and by the age of three she had already started learning to sing songs such as “Bhaja Govindam”. She received her early training in light music from Narahari Dixit and in Carnatic music from Yashasvi Subbarao, building the versatile foundations that would later define her as a performer.

By the time she was five, she had won a national level competition in California, where she caught the attention of one of the judges who offered to guide her further. At six, she released her debut album, simply titled “Spoorthi”, and by eight she was a child artist on All India Radio. At nine she appeared on the Airtel Super Singer Junior Season 4, a show judged by legends such as K.S. Chitra and which counted A.R. Rahman among its guest judges. She went on to win the title, with singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan memorably calling her the future woman power of India. Her victory earned her recognition across the country, and as part of the Super Singer World Tour she subsequently performed at Wembley Stadium in London, the Sydney Town Hall in Australia, and on stages across Canada and Sri Lanka.

Spoorthi gave her formal debut as a solo Carnatic performer in 2019 at the RR Sabha in Chennai and has not looked back since. She has taken her music to the UK, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia and Dubai, performed at international festivals including the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival and the Malaysia International Carnatic Music Festival, and completed a maiden US tour in 2023 with over 15 sold-out concerts. What sets her apart, however, is not simply the breadth of her travels but the depth of her artistry. She has spoken of her love for the improvisational heart of Indian classical music, noting that only a few minutes of any performance are rehearsed and that the rest unfolds in the moment. It is precisely this quality, the ability to think, feel and create in real time, that she regards as the true beauty of the tradition she has devoted her life to.