After hearing Punjabi music for the first time Anita Lerche dove headfirst into the genre and became an unlikely star
Cars stop on the street in India and children sing when they see her. But Anita Lerche still hasn’t quite got used to the attention.
The girl from suburban Herlev who went on a backpacking trip with friends to the Asian country in 2005 has just won a Danish World Award for her Bollywood soundtracks and is now a star in the industry.
It was at a 2006 press conference in India when Lerche understood that her life would change forever. At the time, she was a stranger in the country with no source of income and with her entire belongings in a rucksack.
But after having spent a year in India, she became fascinated with music from the northern Punjab province and decided to record her own CD of the style.
She held a press conference to present the new CD of Punjabi music, ‘Heer from Denmark’.
‘I was really nervous and thought for sure there wouldn’t be a soul at the event,’ she told Metroxpress newspaper.
But she was wrong. Around 50 journalists poured in, including the major Indian television stations.
‘I think they just wanted to see if I could even perform the music right,’ she said. ‘So I sang for them and the day after it was in all the newspapers.’
She soon was offered a record contract and became a phenomenon. And it wasn’t long before children were coming up to her in the street and singing her songs.
‘Things happened very fast in India and suddenly everyone knew me. But their media reaches Indians all over the world, so England, Canada and all sorts of places got to know me as well. When I started my tour in Southall, England, which has a large Indian population, cars stopped on the street because people wanted my autograph,’ she said.
Until she travelled to India in 2005, Lerche had never heard Punjabi music.
‘It went right into me. It made me so happy that I just sat rocking back and forth to it.’
But Lerche was no ordinary traveler when she discovered her life’s passion. She studied at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London and is a trained vocalist who can sing in 14 languages.
She attributes much of her success to Indians’ fascination with a blonde European being able to sing Punjabi music.
‘I found out there weren’t any other blondes in the world who sang in Punjabi. And for the Indians that’s very exotic,’ said Lerche.
‘When I released the CD, the newspapers wrote that when you close your eyes, it sounds like a Punjabi girl.’
At the Copenhagen Jazzhouse this week, Lerche was presented with the Danish World Award for her song ‘Maahiya’ as the ‘Year’s World Track’.
She is currently performing at various venues in Denmark as part of her world tour.
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