Nitin Sawhney

Nitin Sawhney was born in Dulwich, London and grew up in Rochester, Kent in the 1960s and 1970s, attending Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School.

He briefly studied law at Liverpool University before switching to accountancy. At the age of 23, he joined the James Taylor Quartet as a musician. He met Sanjeev Bhaskar whilst studying at the University of Hertfordshire. Together they formed the stand-up duo Bhaji Boys, later the Secret Asians.

As a performer and writer, Sawhney was also involved with the radio series of Goodness Gracious Me from 1996 to 1998, which later transferred to television. He also appeared in Meera Syal’s radio series Masala FM. Whilst involved in comedy he also concentrated on his music career, having released his first album, Spirit Dance, in 1993.

His major breakthrough album was the 1999 release of Beyond Skin, which won the South Bank Award and garnered a Mercury Award nomination. He has released thirteen solo albums and composed numerous scores for film, television and theatre. His work includes a new score, performed live at the Barbican Centre, London in 2006, for early Indian silent film A Throw of Dice (1929), a collaboration between Franz Osten and Himanshu Rai. He has regularly collaborated with dancer-choreographer Akram Khan, including Fix (2000), Kaash (2002) and Zero Degrees (2005). He worked with Complicité theatre company on A Disappearing Number, composing the score for a play on Srinivasa Ramanujan. Sawhney has also penned several soundtracks for films, including for Mira Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake (2006) and Deepa Mehta’s adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (2012). From 2012 to 2015, he broadcast Nitin Sawhney Spins the Globe on BBC Radio 2. His album Dystopian Dream was adapted into a dance piece for Sadler’s Wells in 2017. He also scored the music for A Tupperware of Ashes, starring Meera Syal and written by Tanika Gupta (2024). In 2024, he was also part of the Booker Prize judging panel.