Mohamed Raffee has been active in Singapore, Malaysia and India’s music industries for over 35 years. His repertoire ranges from Indian ghazals to Western classical, jazz, pop, rock and blues music. A multi-instrumentalist proficient in both Western and traditional Indian instruments, he rearranged and produced the Tamil song Munneru Vaaliba for the 1998 National Day celebrations. Raffee has also scored theatre productions such as The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole for Singapore theatre group Agnikoothu and films such as Gurushetram–24 Hours of Anger (2010) as well as Kollywood hit director Ravikumar’s Jaggubhai (2010). Raffee also worked closely with acclaimed Indian film music director A. R. Rahman from 1995 to 2007 while collaborating with other composers as arranger, keyboard programmer and instrumentalist. Raffee has released four albums of original music with his band The Vasantham Boyz and he continues to perform regularly with them.

Sheela Narayanan spent 13 years as a journalist covering beats from social issues to arts and entertainment before making the switch to corporate communications. As one of the hosts for this podcast series, she is thrilled to be part of Kalaa Utsavam 2020, particularly at a time when the resilience of artists everywhere is being severely tested. She believes that their works and creations have never been more important in helping our communities survive these extraordinary times.