Jonita Gandhi(I)

Jonita Gandhi is a Canadian playback singer. She is known to the Indo-Canadian community as Toronto's Nightingale, was born in New Delhi, India and moved to Toronto as an infant, growing up with strong influences in Canadian culture while maintaining a close connection to her Indian heritage. A young and promising new talent, her name has taken music lovers worldwide by storm. Hundreds of thousands of fans across the globe have come to know her through her YouTube presence.

Jonita began performing on stage at the tender age of 4, and has managed to pursue an exciting musical career while maintaining academic excellence and completing her BHSc and HBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Jonita's versatility as a singer spans across various genres including: Sufi, Bollywood, Western Classical, RnB, Pop and Soft Rock just to name a few. She has sung not only in Hindi and English, but also Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, German, Italian, and French for live and recorded performances. She has been trained by the Conservatory of Music in Western Classical singing and now studies Indian Classical music while in India.

In January of 2012, composer, artist and pianist Aakash Gandhi ignited a collaborative effort between three talented musical personalities; it brought together the trio of himself, flautist Sahil Khan, and Jonita Gandhi with vocals on Aakash's YouTube channel '88keystoeuphoria'. Their cover of Pani Da Rang has been viewed by over 5 million people worldwide, which initiated Jonita's international fan following and helped her gain recognition from prominent Bollywood personalities including Amitabh Bachchan, A.R. Rahman, Salim Merchant - Sulaiman Merchant and Ayushmann Khurrana. In 2013, her online presence culminated in her first Bollywood break: the title track of Chennai Express by renowned Bollywood musical duo Vishal Dadlani - Shekhar Ravjiani. She has collaborated with several other YouTube artists including Arjun Coomaraswamy for 'Can't Forget You/Tujhe Bhula Diya', which gained over 2 million views in its first month. Jonita's own YouTube channel not only showcases her collaborative works, but also live performances and TV features, including her appearance with her band on Kappa TV's Music Mojo, and her performance on MTV Coke Studio.

Her successes grew rapidly, as her talents brought her star-studded opportunities including touring alongside Sonu Nigam in his Klose To My Heart tour, gaining her an integrated part in the production. In 2015, Jonita performed as the lead female vocalist in A.R. Rahman's North American Intimate Tour series where she stunned audiences with performances of various genres in 5 different languages. In 2016, she collaborated with ten-time Grammy award winning musician Carlos Santana for a special live performance as part of AR Rahman's band. In addition to headlining concerts around the world as a solo artist, she regularly records and performs alongside A.R. Rahman, Salim-Sulaiman, and Amit Trivedi. She has performed several times on local and international television, and was also selected to perform the Top Songs of 2014 at the Mirchi Music Awards Ceremony in Mumbai.

Shortly after her debut in the Bollywood film music industry, Jonita was contacted to record for Bollywood film songs, jingles and regional films. Her biggest break was when she recorded her first Bollywood solo with A.R. Rahman: 'Kahaan Hoon Main' from the movie Highway (2014). Kahaan Hoon Main was an excellent showcase for her eastern and western musical influences. She made it her own, as she was part of the song from the initial humming-through-composition stages to recording the final song. Since then, Jonita has had the opportunity of working with Rahman on several Bollywood and Kollywood tracks, as well as two songs in his album "Raunaq" for politician Kapil Sibal.