Gaurav Dagaonkar

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Gaurav Dagaonkar
Gaurav D.JPG
Gaurav performing at a University festival in Baroda
Background information
Also known as Dawgie
Born (1982-07-10) 10 July 1982 (age 30)
Mumbai, India
Genres Rock, pop
Occupations Music composer, singer-songwriter, producer
Instruments Vocals, guitar
Years active 2008–present
Associated acts Synchronicity
Website www.gauravonline.com.
Notable instruments
Gibson Les Paul
Gibson Epiphone Acoustic

Gaurav Dagaonkar (गौरव डगावकर; born July 10, 1982) is a Music Director/Singer/Songwriter from Mumbai, India. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

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Early life [edit]

Gaurav completed his schooling from St. Xavier High School, Mumbai. As a child, Gaurav showed no particular inclination towards music, but showed great interest in sport, particularly cricket. As a part of his school team, Gaurav played the Harris Shield inter-school cricket tournament. However, after missing out on being selected in the college team of Mithibai College, where he was pursuing science, Gaurav shifted his focus to academics. He scored 97.3% in his H.S.C examinations (PCM) and took admission in Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai in the stream of Information Technology. It was at TSEC that Gaurav got first introduced to rock music through a friend. After winning a few inter-collegiate singing competitions, he became the lead vocalist of the college band. In 2004, Gaurav completed his B.E degree and was awarded the Gold Medal for being the 'Best All-Round Achiever' of the college. In the final year, he took the Common Admission Test (CAT) of the IIMs and cleared it in the first attempt, securing a percentile of 99.31% and got admission at IIM Ahmedabad. At IIM-A, he set up a small studio in his room and also formed a band called 'Zaahir' which did a few shows in Ahmedabad.

Post IIM-A: "College Days - The Album" [edit]

In 2006, after completing his MBA, Gaurav decided to pursue a career in music instead of taking up the corporate route. He did not sit for campus placements and instead started recording a music album. This rare incident received tremendous coverage in all prominent newspapers and news channels in India. Gaurav's music career was flagged off by Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, the Indian software giant. Subsequently, his debut album "College Days" produced by Ranjit Barot and engineered by Ashish Manchanda was released on Universal Music in February 2008. The title track 'College Days' was a hit amongst college students. Gaurav has written and composed all the songs of "College Days".

As Music Director [edit]

As music director, Gaurav's first release was the movie Lanka, which released on December 9, 2011. The film was directed by Maqbool Khan and was produced by noted filmmaker Vikram Bhatt. The film fared poorly at the box office, also the music also received poor success.

Gaurav's most recent release has been the song 'Soniye' from the film Will You Marry Me. The song has been sung by renowned Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan as has been co-written by lyricist Shabbir Ahmed and Gaurav himself. The video for the song has crossed a million hits on YouTube. Gaurav has also featured in the music video of the remix of 'Soniye', alongside popular Bollywood actors Rajeev Khandelwal, Shreyas Talpade and Mugdha Godse.

Amongst upcoming releases, Gaurav has composed an item number in the film "Joker", starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha. The song is called Kaafirana and has been sung by Sunidhi Chauhan and picturized on Chitrangada Singh. The film, directed by Shirish Kunder is scheduled to release on August 31, 2012. Gaurav is presently composing the music for a film called "Heartless", being produced by TV personality Shekhar Suman, starring his son, Adhyayan Suman.

Synchronicity [edit]

Gaurav is the lead vocalist and frontman of the group 'Synchronicity'. Synchronicity is also the name of the series started by Gaurav in which he performs mash-ups of popular Bollywood and Western songs. The first mashup to be recorded and shot as a music video in this series was Tujhe Bhula Diya / Hello. The video has had over 500,000 hits on Youtube. Subsequently, two more tracks, Yara Sili Sili / Careless Whisper and Pee Loon / You Sang To Me were released to a great response. With several requests to perform live, Gaurav and the musicians involved, got together to form the band Synchronicity. Gaurav and Arunima Bhattacharya are the permanent singers in the group, while guest singers in live shows include names like Neeti Mohan, Shalmali Kholgade, Rahul Saxena, Natalie De Luccio, Ustad Sawan Khan, Thomson Andrews and Vidhi Sharma.

As a Performing Artiste [edit]

As a live performer, Gaurav plays with a four-piece band and has performed at some of the biggest festivals in India such as Mood Indigo (IIT Bombay), Chaos (IIM Ahmedabad), Backwaters (IIM Kohzikode), Sparsh (SVNIT, Surat), Dishaa 09 (SCT College of Engineering, Trivandrum), Symbiosis Pune, etc. He has shared the stage with renowned artistes and bands from India and Pakistan such as Junoon, Silk Route, Mohit Chauhan, Parikrama, Rahul Sharma etc. He is a left-handed guitar player and is one of the official brand ambassadors of Gibson guitars in India. Gaurav has been featured amongst the "Faces of the Future" by India Today (Simply Mumbai, January '09).

Discography [edit]

As a composer [edit]

Year Title Writer Producer Singer
2013 Ab Laut Aa Niranjan Iyengar Sanjoy Deb Sunidhi Chauhan
2013 Ab Laut Aa (Revisited) Niranjan Iyengar Sanjoy Deb Gaurav Dagaonkar

Filmography [edit]

As a music director [edit]

Year Film Director Star Cast Song Name (Singer)
2012 Chal Pichchur Banate Hain Pritish Chakraborty Rahil Tandon, Bhavna Ruparel, Mukesh Bhatt "Baawra Mann" (Sunidhi Chauhan)
2012 Joker Shirish Kunder Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade "Kaafirana" (Sunidhi Chauhan)
2012 Will You Marry Me Aditya Datt Rajeev Khandelwal, Shreyas Talpade, Mugdha Godse "Soniye" (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan)
2011 Lanka Maqbool Khan Manoj Bajpai, Arjan Bajwa, Tia Bajpai "Sheet Leher" (Shreya Ghoshal), "Barham Hain Hum" (KK)

External links [edit]