Mehreen

Mehreen’s singing training started, as she says, before her birth. As her sister used to learn oriental (north Indian) classical vocal at home, her orientation with music was from the first days of her life – even before! And thus her access to the music was automatic. She was discovered to be a marvelous harmonium player when she was not even four. She first began primary sargams from Ustaad Pulin Dey. Then she moved on to chchayanot. The story of her first day there at chchayanot she fond...

Mehreen’s singing training started, as she says, before her birth. As her sister used to learn oriental (north Indian) classical vocal at home, her orientation with music was from the first days of her life – even before! And thus her access to the music was automatic. She was discovered to be a marvelous harmonium player when she was not even four. She first began primary sargams from Ustaad Pulin Dey. Then she moved on to chchayanot. The story of her first day there at chchayanot she fondly remembers. Her mom took there to be admitted, understandably, at a primary class, since she was only seven then. Ustaad Mithun Dey was sitting afar while she was being tested. He called her to him. And readily took her to his class as the youngest student of first year classical section. It was her bad luck, she says, that she was blessing with his attention only for a few months as he fell ill soon after. Her early life was a bit of here now and there then. But music was always with her. Her portable harmonium was always along, representing bangla music worldwide at a tender age. She aspired for perfection unknowingly from then on. It was during her visit to the West Indies when she joined the school choir as a member of the senior choir. She has always been under the guidance of her music teacher and very much believes in music to be “guru mukhi”. She was an active musician at school (viqarun nisa noon) and college (holy cross). Till today she has had the privilege of being acquainted with stalwarts in Bangladesh like, Ustaad Shudhin Das, Ustaad Abdul Latif, Ferdousy Rahman, Ustaad Omar Faruk. This has increased the horizon of her capabilities to an unprecedented combination. She knows the hardcore folk to Tagore, classical to Nazrul. Till today she is taking vocal lessons of various genres of classical music, and wants to continue learning for as long as she lives. She takes her western vocal lessons from Charlotte Surkin in New York. Of coarse, she says, learning for a musician is throughout every moment and second that she lives and meets each and every person in day to day life. Mehreen pursued music but never thought of stardom. She waited for the right person with her first demo until she met the “murderer” trio. They together created the revolutionary album “ANARI”. This creation was regarded as the revival of pop music when it was first played in 1999 on Channel I. This sparked pop music for the second generation of pop artistes and gave birth to the “neo-pop” in Bangladesh. This fact fetched Mehreen a lot of awards including the highest recognition among public awards “the Ononna” award for bringing in a new genre of musical presentation. Not only in genre, Mehreen first represented the Generation Youth – a complete newness in musical presentation. Her music video Anari was a favorite play of the then popular private channel “Channel I” – and thus a constant hit. This boomed pop music as well as Mehreen as the in and hot artist – the Pop Princess for ever more. Till now she has released five solos with dozens of hits for the local market. Anari (2000), Dekha Hobe (2002), Mone Pore Tomae (2004), Bhalobashar Gaan A Romantic Compilation (2005), and Don’t Forget Me (2006). Debdash, Dola, Radha, Preme Porechi etc are some of her mixed albums. Watching her mark and potential, she was made a Pepsi star, the first female to become so in the country. Mehreen is now a household favorite. Her public appearances include open-air concerts and solos in the capital as well at venues all over the country and beyond. She has been one of the first Bangladeshi pop artists to go live on international channel Tara bangla from the Nazrul Manch in kolkata. She is also a marked name at the only regional music channel the Tara Muzik, which has also released her solo in Kolkata, besides her constant presence at the local satellite tv channels, the national terrestrial channel Bangladesh Television and the radios. Now, it is her wish and commitment to be known, and to make her mother tongue Bangla be known, internationally. Mehreen this year responded to international invitations. She is now working at a cross cultural fusion project with Bikrom Ghosh from India and Djamel from France, with four other artists from all over the world. In November 2007, she will work with the French Jazz-fusion band The Mescal Unit to produce a solo which in her opinion will be another land mark for music trend in Bangladesh. So far, she was the only representative of the new era at the indo-bangla kala music award 2003 held at the Manhattan center New York besides star performer the living legend Runa Layla from Bangladesh. She was invited by the ministry of tourism, govt of Bahrain to perform for the Bangladeshi community there on the same stage with star performers from India and Sri Lanka. She was the artist to be invited by the ministry of tourism, govt of Malaysia to record a song for promotion of Malaysian tourism. This was a track composed by an internationally acclaimed Malaysian composer and voiced by artists of 10 other countries. Mehreen voiced the Bangla track; the recording was done in Kuala Lumpur; Malaysian Airlines and the Malaysian Tourism Ministry sponsored the trip. This was her first recording outside Bangladesh. This was released as VCD in 2001. She was the first ever pop performer to be included in a government trip to perform at stages in Pakistan, Thailand and Burma. She performed at the biggest gathering of Bangladeshis living in the UK, the Boishakhi Mela, at brick lane, London, in presence of 56000 people. She has performed and was awarded as best pop at the prestigious Fobana, NY. A three week long tour of the UK took her in front of a foreign audience at the Edinburgh Mela, the subcontinent wing of the Fringe Festival. She has been the first mainstream Bangladeshi artist to be invited, along with her band – the Anaries, at the Edinburgh Mela. In September 2003, Mehreen went to Bombay, to shoot videos for the proposed regional MTV India.