Interview with Shonaa Gonsalves

On a lovely Sunday evening, 12th of July at 6pm, we had Ms.Shonaa Gonsalves, well known Singer Performer, join Mr. Arvind, CEO of team.i on our Instagram live series  Expert Speak on the changing landscape…a plethora of opportunities.

Tell us about yourself

 Ms. Shona Gonsalves hails from Mumbai. Her mother was a teacher and her father was into Business, thus her aspiration for singing was something that was out of the blue for her parents. “due to my background, it was shocking for my parents to know about my passion for singing. But I was quite adamant to chase my passion”.Slowly when she became more serious about her passion and her career, she decided to train rigorously under a professional. Thus she trained with famous Indian playback singer and Filmfare award recipient, Mrs. Sharda Rajan.

 She then worked on her first album with Sajid sir and Farhad sir, who were into songwriting back then. Then came her first stage show in 2007 at Ramoji film city where she opened the show with Bombay Vikings. 

Since then, there’s been no stopping for Ms. Shonaa. “I started my career in 2007 and so far I have done around 5,000 to 6,000 shows in these 13 years”.

How has the lockdown period been?

“Right now I am working on my youtube channel. I haven’t realized how powerful the virtual world is, and I never gave importance to it so far. But now I have been quite open to social media. I have done 2-3 cover songs, and now we just have to shoot my clips”.

Have you done any virtual events so far?

“No I haven’t done any virtual events or shows so far”. According to Ms. Shonaa, the virtual space is something that she’s yet to figure out or mend ways with. She’s not yet comfortable with doing shows virtually. “For me, my singing has to interact with the audience reaction which is not possible over online and it’s quite difficult for me to perform over virtual without crowd reaction”.

 What’s your take on the current situation?

 “I think it’s going to go on for a long time. Minimum 6 months away from normal life. Once the vaccine comes, things will be back to normal”.

 Any advice for aspiring singers or youngsters?

“You need a lot of craziness and zid to sustain and create a niche in this industry”.

In the end, Ms. Shonaa performs 2 songs dedicated to all the people who are part of the events industry. 

To watch the full video, head over to our Instagram page.