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Future of Music 2025

Siddharth Pandit Uses Silence Like a Superpower

For the pianist and composer, it can start with Chopin and end with a thumri

Apr 23, 2025
Rolling Stone India - Google News

Photo courtesy of the artist

A lot of work for a composer, producer and pianist like Siddharth Pandit might take place in recording studios—whether it’s soundtracks and background scores for films like Uri: The Surgical Strike or more recently, Bandish Bandits season two or even his Azaad Sangeet album series.  

So what was he doing hosting a full original set of music with an ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists at the NCPA in Mumbai in February this year? Pandit, who began playing keyboard at the age of five, says it was to reinforce that “live music is still the most honest litmus test for a composer.”  

The 32-year-old multi-instrumentalist describes the concert as a “turning point” in terms of his sustained interest in piano and even making music. “It felt like everything I’ve been working on behind the scenes finally had a stage that could hold it,” he says.  

A producer, arranger and composer in the film industry since 2017, Pandit also steadily showcases how the worlds of Indian traditional music and Western classical can meet through Azaad Sangeet, whose third season came out in September 2024, spawning the wavy song “Beete Nahi” with singer Hansika Pareek and lyricist Alok Ranjan Srivastava. A soothing track that has warm, campfire jam vibes (with surprisingly intricate guitar work), the song showcased just how committed Pandit is to his independent music even as OTT songs like “Khaamakha” and “Hichki 2.0” from Bandish Bandits took off. It wasn’t so much about a conscious fusion as it was about his natural way of hearing things, bringing together his admiration for structures in Western classical and the soul of Indian music. “That bridge [of Indian and Western music] is where I live, honestly,” he says.  

Playing it by ear: Pandit recalls he was about eight or nine years old when he began trying to replicate playing the melodies he heard around him. “I was discovering emotion—how a single chord could shift the whole feeling in a room. That’s still magic to me,” he says. Decades on, despite mastering multiple instruments like guitar, flute and drums, Pandit still considers himself a pianist first. “What drew me to the piano then is what still keeps me grounded now: it’s this complete instrument that lets you play harmony, melody, rhythm — all at once,” he says.  

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Learning on the go: Pandit, who grew up in different parts of Uttar Pradesh and considers Jaipur his hometown, enrolled at A.R. Rahman’s K.M. Conservatory for three years before he decided to drop out. Though he learned a lot, he says at some point, he felt like he had hit a wall. “I was learning about music, but I wasn’t making enough of my own. I think I’ve always had this restless energy — I wanted to get my hands dirty with real projects, collaborate, fail, learn on the job. Dropping out wasn’t easy, but it felt necessary. And weirdly, that decision led me to some of my most important work,” he recalls. Film projects like Raag Desh came out in 2017, and Azaad Sangeet season one came out in 2019. The curious kid who used to place his computer headphone mic on the keyboard speaker to record melodies suddenly found himself helming music supervision for Uri: The Surgical Strike in 2019 and composing and producing for films like Faraaz alongside Sameer Rahat. Through those raw experiments with barely any sound recording gear, Pandit learned how “every sound had to be fought for.”  

Digging deeper: Thanks to the DIY lessons he learned through those early experiments, the challenge of composing, arranging and playing the keys is now more of an emotional one. “How do I say something I haven’t said before? Or how do I say it more honestly?,” he explains. He appeared on Bandish Bandits after the likes of Shakar-Ehsaan-Loy had composed for season one. “That nervous energy pushed me to dig deep — to honor the legacy while bringing my own voice. Finding that balance was the real creative high,” Pandit recalls. The driving groove of the song “Khaamakha” from Bandish Bandits—with Nikhita Gandhi on vocals and Srivastava penning the lyrics—builds up and are stripped away just as effortlessly, Pandit building movements like a classical artists within four and a half minutes.  

Freedom jam: Soundtracks can come and go, but Azaad Sangeet is the ongoing project that Pandit considers his big break in terms of truly finding his voice as an artist. He promises it will be an “annual ritual” and likens creating songs for that project to “musical hygiene.” He adds, “[It’s] where I remind myself of who I am, unfiltered. The first time I heard someone cry listening to a track I made, that’s when I knew I was on the right path. That’s more important to me than any numbers.”  

The power of pause: Among the devices in Pandit’s composing arsenal – honed over years of producing, playing piano, drawing from theory and being a multi-instrumentalist – is his way of using silence and space, also heard on “Khaamakha.” He says, “I think we’re so used to overproduction now that we forget how powerful a moment of pause can be. On the piano, I love using harmonic ambiguity — chords that don’t resolve, voicings that hover. There’s beauty in tension.”  

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