Tajdar Junaid

Tajdar Junaid is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with roots in Calcutta and a working base in Bombay. His career moves across independent music, film, theatre, and collaborative arts. He works with instruments such as guitar, charango, steel guitar, and sarangi, building a sound that connects Indian musical thinking with global forms.

His debut album, What Colour Is Your Raindrop, received strong critical attention and was listed among Rolling Stone’s Top Albums of 2013. The record introduced him as an artist working beyond fixed genres, focusing on mood, space, and storytelling through sound. It placed him among a generation of musicians shaping a new, open-ended language in Indian independent music.

In cinema, Tajdar’s work has travelled widely. His composition “Dastaan” was featured in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s The President, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2014. His music also appeared in the Hollywood film Sold, produced by Emma Thompson. Within India, he has collaborated with Anurag Kashyap Productions, Aparna Sen, and Rituparno Ghosh. He earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Background Score for Mukti Bhawan and contributed to Writing With Fire, a documentary presented at Sundance and IDFA and later nominated for Best Documentary at the 94th Academy Awards. In 2023, his work reached a wider audience through Coke Studio Bharat.

A key feature of Tajdar’s music is his use of space and pause. His compositions do not rely on heavy layers or spectacle. Instead, they are built through tone, timing, and restraint, allowing silence to play an active role. This makes his music effective across films, live performances, theater, and dance.

Alongside composition and performance, Tajdar has spent nearly fifteen years teaching. He regularly works with young musicians through workshops and open sessions, keeping his practice accessible and grounded in sharing. Active in both urban and suburban music scenes, he has collaborated across disciplines, including theater, dance, interactive media, and large-scale concerts. His collaborators include Amyt Datta, Blackstratblues, Greg Johnson, Karsh Kale, Moushumi Bhowmik, Fred White, Anusheh Anadil, and Swanand Kirkire.