About
Prithvi Gandharv, born 8 April 1990 in Mumbai, is a singer and composer from a fourth-generation musical family; his grandfather Mohan Singh was a film-industry harmonium player and his father Ashok Gandharv is a violinist. He began singing at the age of four, trained early in Hindustani classical music, and is a protege of Padma Shri Hariharan. Though he works across genres, ghazal singing remains closest to his heart.
Gandharv assisted composers including Pritam, Shantanu Moitra and Shamir Tandon before his breakout as a playback voice with Albela Sajan in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani (2015), which won Best Raag-based Song of the Decade at the Radio Mirchi Awards. On the ghazal circuit he has performed at the Khazana festival and toured internationally alongside the legendary Ustad Ghulam Ali, including a 2025 North America tour. He has composed ghazal albums with Ustad Rashid Khan and Javed Ali, released originals such as Niyat-e-Shauq, and also performs Sufi and devotional music, including with the Isha Foundation. He has given more than a thousand concerts worldwide.
The artistry
Gandharv has a classically grounded voice that adapts across ghazal, Hindustani classical, Sufi, devotional and Bollywood playback. He performs with his own band and also composes, bringing a producer's ear to traditional forms while keeping the ghazal's emotional core intact.
[Atlas Assessment] Among the stronger profiles in this cohort - real awards (Radio Mirchi), a verified substantial following (104K Instagram), and named appearances at major ghazal festivals (Khazana). Genuinely spans classical grounding and mainstream reach rather than favouring one over the other, which is the specific thing that makes him useful for varied programming.
Prithvi Gandharv's fourth-generation musical lineage and direct mentorship under Hariharan situate him within an unusually well-documented chain of transmission for a younger artist, and his genuine Bollywood playback breakout (Albela Sajan) gives him a crossover profile most pure ghazal singers of his generation lack.