Atif Afzal

Atif Afzal
Recording in the studio
Background information
Birth name	Syed Atif Afzal
Born	Mumbai, India
Genres	Orchestral, Electronic, Soundtrack
Occupation(s)	Composer, Singer
Instruments	Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Years active	2013-present
Website	http://atifafzal.com/

Atif Afzal (born Syed Atif Afzal on 17 May 1985) is an Indian composer. He debuted as a film composer in 2013 by composing songs and film score for the movie Pune 52. After Pune 52, he scored music for a psycho-thriller Prague (2013 film),^[1] starring Chandan Roy Sanyal and Elena Kazan, followed by a Marathi superhero movie Baji (film)^[2][3] starring Shreyas Talpade.

Life and career

Atif was born in Mumbai, India and at the very early stage of life moved to London in 1992. Three years later, he moved back to India and continued his studies. He completed his engineering from K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering. He worked as an IT Consultant in KPMG for three years and then quit the job to follow his passion for music. He became the lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Nemesis. The band dissolved later, however he continued to play instruments such as guitar, harmonica, ukulele and piano. Atif learned Hindustani classical music from Pandit Man Singh Zaver and Carnatic music from Pandit Padmanaban.

Original Scores and Songs

In 2013, Atif was working on the movie Prague, a Hindi romance film directed by Ashish R Shukla and produced by Rohit Khaitan. The film features Chandan Roy Sanyal, Elena Kazan and Arfi Lamba. The movie had nine songs and 17 soundtracks composed by Atif. He has also sung 5 songs in the movie and collaborated with artists all over the world to produce the soundtracks. The music, which was very new to Bollywood, received wide acclamation from the audience.^[4]

While he was working on Prague, he got a call from Nikhil Mahajan to score for Pune 52, a 2013 Neo-noir Thriller Marathi language film. Along with the background score, Atif composed the only song in the movie – Jag Saare Badle sung by Shalmali Kholgade.

During the release of Pune 52, Atif was working on Baji, a 2015 Marathi action Vigilante film written and directed by Nikhil Mahajan and produced by Arun Rangachari, Vivek Rangachari and Amit Ahirrao under the banner DAR Motion Pictures and Virtue Entertainment. The film has 6 songs, all composed by Atif. He also crooned a song titled ‘Shravan’, marking his Marathi debut track sung with Chinmayi Sripada.^[5] Atif recalls one special song in the movie - Masoli - which was challenging for him to record, because while being an up-tempo, peppy item song, it suddenly turns into a hugely orchestrated action packed, heroic piece and then goes back to the sound of the item number and keeps going back and forth.^[6]

Atif’s next releases includes Monsoon Shootout, directed by Amit Kumar and produced by Guneet Monga, Anurag Kashyap, Arun Rangachari and Vivek Rangachari. The film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tannishtha Chatterjee in the lead roles. Atif has done the background music for this Hindi noir thriller, which was screened during the 2013 Cannes Film Festival in the Midnight Screenings section and also during the 17th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival in 2015. The score ranges from 'electronic to orchestral' and took him nearly four months to compose.^[7]

Discography

Awards

Atif Afzal was nominated for ‘Upcoming Music composer of the year’ for his song in Pune 52 at the Radio Mirchi Music Awards.^[9]

References

External links

• Official website
• Atif Afzal at the Internet Movie Database