BIO

Washington DC-born, San Francisco-raised, and New York-naturalized artist Reeya Banerjee has been playing music since the early age of seven. She was brought up by two creative parents - both Indian immigrants who moved to the US from New Delhi in 1978. Reeya’s mother was a singer trained in the Indian classical tradition (Ravi Shankar was a family friend) and her father studied the Western canon on violin as a young man. Reeya credits her lifelong musical obsession to her mother who introduced her to The Beatles. Reeya cut her musical teeth by learning piano during a 3 year stint living in Chicago. There she also began singing and touring as part of a local professional children's choir called the Evanston Children's Chorus. After two years this pursuit culminated in a performance at Chicago Symphony Center with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when Reeya was just nine years old. The choir toured all over the Chicago area giving performances - Reeya’s first real taste of live music performance.

Middle and high school in San Francisco saw Reeya immerse herself in the world of acting, pursuing more extensive voice training for musical theatre. She came to New York’s Hudson Valley for college and after graduating never left the area, eventually calling it her home for nearly 20 years. After a decade immersed in the rat-race of Manhattan corporate-and-commuter life, Reeya realized it was time for a change. She engaged a long unfulfilled desire that had stirred inside her ever since her mother exposed her to The Beatles as a child and took up bass lessons at Beacon Music Factory in Beacon NY, to attain her lifelong goal of emulating her hero, Paul McCartney. This led Reeya to performing regularly in public, putting her own unique spin on rock classics including the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Who, U2, and of course, The Beatles.

Reeya began exploring the idea of creating original music with Manhattan-based producer and multi instrumentalist Luke Folger in late 2019. Speaking on those early sessions Reeya says, “I had a concept and some ideas I wanted to explore, as well as a general agreement that I wanted to move away from that classic rock space that I had inadvertently pigeonholed myself into.” Luke and Reeya continued to write and workshop the new material throughout the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period; during this time Reeya also embarked on the #coronamusic project with her friend and longtime musical collaborator James Rubino in his home studio in Brooklyn, releasing reinvented covers of some of her most beloved songs. Working with James on this project prepared Reeya well for the vocal demands of studio recording.

By February 2021 Luke had all of the instrumentals tracked for the new record and they recorded Reeya’s vocals for all eight songs in two marathon recording sessions in an empty, repurposed condo in the Bronx. Common themes emerged under the banner of mental health, trauma and the process of working through long-standing grief: Reeya’s mother passed away in 1997 after a long battle with cancer when Reeya was just 12 years old. The Way Up acts as a sort of map through the hardships and uncharted territory that life brings. The pre-release promotional work on the record coincided with her family’s relocation to the Capital District, and the record’s release on January 27, 2022 marked the debut of her live band, with James Rubino on lead guitar (and serving as musical director), Daria Grace on bass guitar, Adam Gloc on keyboard, and Tony Cenicola on drums.

While Reeya and James plan to eventually complete the full intended scope of the #coronamusic project, they have taken a time out to write some original songs together as well, resulting in the single “Mechanic of the Hudson” released on December 1, 2022, and the companion single “Shadows” released on May 1, 2023. Reeya and Luke are also in the process of recording her follow-up album at James’ newly established studio Lorien Soundworks in Brooklyn, with a planned release in Spring 2024.

In addition to music, Reeya is a staff writer and podcaster at Story Screen, a Hudson Valley regional arts publication. Her work focuses on media and pop culture analysis through the lens of personal narrative. Reeya’s writing has also been published in the Peauxdunque Review, CurtCo Media’s A Moment of Your Time podcast, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and she is a Pushcart Prize nominee for her work in Streetlight Magazine. She has work forthcoming in The Vincent Brothers Review. She also works as a voiceover artist, lending her voice to brands such as Beats by Dre and working with Yonder Agency and Edge Studio.

In her other life, she works as a staff accountant, loves watching Law & Order: SVU reruns while eating gummy bears, and has a film degree from Vassar College that she does not use.