The
mantel of being Chandana's first Guru and mentor falls on her mother, who
was a trained classical musician with a Sangeet Visharad. This was the training
ground for the aspiring singer. Spending her childhood in Nigeria, Africa,
her early memories comprise of listening to the music tapes her mother would
take back from their vacation to India.She loved listening to them over
and over again and also attempted to sing along. Her parents would both
sing at all the parties they would be invited for within the small Indian
community that resided there. On her return to India, she took up training in Hindustani Classical music at Pune where she resided at the insistence of friends and relatives who saw the latent talent in the young girl.She learnt from the famous singer Saraswaswati Rane of the Kirana Gharana. In the first classical music competition that she participated in she won the 1st prize, inspite of being the youngest(16) where all the other participants were much older and had learnt music for years.This was followed by winning many more competitions.At this point a lot of family,friends and well wishers felt that she should explore the possibility of playback singing as she had a suitable voice and would be able to reach a wider audience with popular music. So soon after the training the inevitable step of boarding the train to Mumbai happened and Chandana landed in what was then Bombay.
Starting her career from the rungs, she earned a contract with Tips for singing their non - film catalogue. This was double - edged sword. On one hand it gave her immediate exposure to the musical world in India's film capital simultaneously giving her the opportunity to hone her skills singing songs of practically all the genres. The fall - out was the restraining clause of the contract which forbade her from taking outside work. Chandana lost out on some key projects at this juncture.
However her playback singing career begun in a very unexpected way when 'Tips' were producing their first movie she was called in to dub a song for the movie 'Coolie no.1' which was not supposed to be retained in her voice!But music directors Anand Milind were impressed by her rendition and decided to retain the song in her voice.The song 'Goriya churana mera jiya' went on to become a big hit but unfortunately Chanana couldn't benefit from it as she was under a contract with 'Tips' and couldn't sing elsewhere. Success however nearly reached her steps with the massive hit 'Shaher Ki Ladki' from Rakshak, which was a trendsetter in more ways than one. Her name never figured in the credits for this song and Chandana missed out on accruing any commercial advantage from one of the biggest hits of year. Anand - Milind who gave the hit 'Shaher Ki Ladki' also gave her some songs in their later films like Bhai, Danveer etc which were of no help because of lack of marketing.
In 1997 she diversified into pop singing when Venus cassettes approached her with an offer to produce her debut pop album 'Jawani'. Not diverting from the trend, she has tried to please all sections of the Pop brigade with a dash of Calypso, Bhangra and the ubiquitous dance numbers.It was an exciting beginning.
Having made Lata Mangeshkar as her idol, her standards are decidedly of a tall order, which she hopes to achieve by singing various types of songs with all the music directors. At the moment she has putting finishing touches on her soon to be released pop album which has new themes collaborating with several international musicians in the United States. Also currently in progress is another fusion lounge album based with a classical touch and experimentation with classical themes. She is also working on going back to her roots in classical music and planning a series of classical music concerts.