Indira Mahajan

Indira Kumari Mahajan is an Indian American operatic soprano.

Early life and education

Mahajan was born to Bhushan Kumar Mahajan of Punjab and Barbara Mahajan, an African-American from North Carolina. Her childhood was spent at Upper West Side where she began playing violin at age five. Because her mother was trained in Juilliard School, she taught her how to sing, play piano and even do ballet, but only in high school did she began professional began professional voice training. In college, she initially pursued African-American studies, but abandoned it for voice major.

After graduation, she joined Mannes School of Music where she obtained her Master's of Music degree, a diploma from the Accademia Musicale Ottorino Resphighi and then got her Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College.

Career

Mahajan's singing career began during her late years in Mannes School of Music. There, she became to be known for the role of Sandrina in La finta giardiniera. Following acclaim from the New York Post who called her performance "confidently", she continued performing and appeared in lead roles of Musetta in La Bohème and Madame Butterfly in the play of the same name. Her role of Madame Butterfly was performed in opera houses of states like Arizona and Minnesota while her appearance in Jay Lesenger's production of Puccini's Suor Angelica was played in Chautauqua Opera. She also known for her portrayal of the character of Bess in Porgy and Bess which she performed with such orchestras as the Royal Stockholm, Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi, Iceland Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and at the Teatro Comunale, Florence. In the United States, her role of Bess can be heard at the opera houses of Dallas, Los Angeles and Washington while in Europe it can be heard in Carré Theatre, Congress Center Hamburg, Deutsches Theater, Oper Frankfurt, Staatsoper Hannover and Opera Comique, among others.

Personal life

Mahajan met her future husband, an Italian-American tenor and vocal instructor from New York, Craig Sirianni, in 1999, during her performance of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème. In 2005 they met again while commuting in a subway at the Grand Central Terminal. Following this event, they married three years later.