The First Song Priyanka Barve Shared Was Beside Her Grandmother. Decades Later, She Returns With Her Music.
MUMBAI | 14 July 2026
The first time Priyanka Barve stood on a stage, she was four years old. It was a Guru Purnima celebration, and she had insisted on singing beside her grandmother, Vidushi Malati Pande Barve. She did not know then that the woman seated next to her would become her first Guru, or that one day she would return to that moment in a way neither of them could have imagined.
This Ashadhi Wari, Priyanka has released Vitthalache Bheti, the opening song from Vithai, a three-song devotional project. More than a new musical release, the song introduces an original composition by the late Vidushi Malati Pande Barve that, until now, had never been formally recorded or shared with the public.
Priyanka was seven when her grandmother passed away. The years they shared were few, but the music remained. Some of her earliest memories are not of concerts or recordings, but of waking to the sound of dawn riyaaz, watching students arrive for lessons, and growing up in a home where music belonged as naturally as conversation. Musicians such as Sudhir Phadke, Shrinivas Khale, Gajananrao Watve and Prabhakar Jog were familiar visitors, and the house carried the quiet rhythm of practice, learning and song.
Years later, that music has found its way back—not as nostalgia, but as an offering.
With Vithai, Priyanka returns to the songs she first heard at home and shares one of them with listeners for the first time, allowing a composition that lived for decades within a family to begin a new journey beyond it.
To understand Vithai, one has to begin with Vidushi Malati Pande Barve.
A Hindustani classical vocalist, composer and Guru, she spent her life teaching, performing and writing music. Even after asthma forced her away from the concert stage, she continued to compose. Abhangs, devotional songs, bhavgeet and ghazals flowed into notebooks that remained close to home, shared with her disciples but rarely heard beyond that circle.
For years, those songs lived quietly—in handwritten manuscripts, in family memory and in the voices of the students who learnt them from her. They belonged to a living tradition rather than a recording catalogue. Vitthalache Bheti is the first of those original compositions to be formally presented to a wider audience.
For Priyanka, that decision came with time. What she inherited was not only music, but a way of living with it. The discipline of dawn riyaaz, the respect for words, the patience to return to a composition until it revealed itself—these were lessons absorbed long before she stepped into a recording studio.
The child who grew up in that musical home went on to become one of Maharashtra’s leading playback singers. She received the Maharashtra State Award for Kalokhachya Vatevarti from Bandishala, lent her voice to films including Rama Madhav, Anandi Gopal, Chandramukhi, Me Vasantrao and Panipat, and later reached audiences across India through her portrayal of Anarkali in Mughal-E-Azam: The Musical. Yet, for all those milestones, Vithai returns her to where her own journey began.
The project has been created with her husband, producer and music arranger Sarang Kulkarni, under The PriyaRang Project. Together, they approached the music with a simple question: how do you bring an old composition into the present without changing the truth of it?
The answer lies in the music itself.
Vitthalache Bheti features vocals by Priyanka Barve, lyrics by Kavi Sudhanshu, and an original composition by Vidushi Malati Pande Barve. The song has been conceptualised and arranged by Sarang Kulkarni, who has built the arrangement around the composition rather than over it. The sound remains rooted in the devotional tradition, with flute by Abhay Oak, supported by tabla, pakhawaj, percussion and chorus, allowing the original melody to remain at the heart of the recording.
The title Vithai brings together two words familiar to Maharashtra’s devotional tradition—Vitthal and Aai. Together, they express the warmth with which generations of devotees have addressed Lord Vitthal: not only as a deity, but as a presence that feels close enough to belong to the family.
Looking back today, Priyanka still remembers her grandmother less through words than through sound.
“When I think of my grandmother, I don’t just remember a musician—I remember my first Guru. I was only seven when she passed away, so I didn’t have many years with her. But I still remember waking up to her morning riyaaz, watching her teach, and growing up in a home where music was simply part of everyday life. One of my earliest memories is standing beside her during a Guru Purnima celebration and singing with her. At that age, I had no idea those moments would stay with me for the rest of my life. Today, being able to share one of her original compositions with listeners feels like Today, being able to share one of her original compositions with listeners feels like bringing her music into the world in a new way. Releasing Vitthalache Bheti during Ashadhi Wari makes that offering even more special for me.”
For Sarang Kulkarni, the challenge was never to make the music sound new.
“The compositions already carried everything they needed. Our responsibility was to listen carefully to what was already there. Every decision—from the arrangement to the instrumentation—was made to support the composition, not to overshadow it. We wanted listeners to hear Malati Tai’s music, not our interpretation of it.”
Premiered on 14 July 2026, Vitthalache Bheti marks the beginning of Vithai, a three-song devotional project. The remaining songs will be released in the coming weeks.
For Priyanka, however, the project does not end with a release.
It returns to a small memory.
A four-year-old child standing beside her grandmother.
A house where the day began with riyaaz.
A song that waited quietly for decades before finding its listeners.
Some music belongs to its time.
Some waits patiently until its time arrives.
With Vithai, one such song has finally found its way from a family’s memories into the public domain.
Release Information
Project: Vithai
First Release: Vitthalache Bheti
Premiered: 14 July 2026
Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/taOvdBjpIW4?si=XOyEk2Jrl-VpKs3j
(Streaming on additional audio platforms as announced by the producers.)
Technical Credits
* Vocals: Priyanka Barve
* Original Composition: Vidushi Malati Pande Barve
* Lyrics: Kavi Sudhanshu
* Conceptualised & Arranged By: Sarang Kulkarni
* Flute: Abhay Oak
* Tabla: Aashay Kulkarni, Soham Gorhane, Omkar Ingawale
* Pakhawaj: Omkar Ingawale, Rohit Khawle
* Side Percussion: Apurv Dravid
* Chorus: Jai Paranjape, Anoushka Apte, Ishita Modak, Ishaan Modak, Arnav Joshi, Parth Garud
* Recorded By: Tushar Pandit & Ayush (Dawn Studios); Sarang (PriyaRang Audios)
* Mixed & Mastered By: Ishaan Devasthali
About The PriyaRang Project
The PriyaRang Project is an independent music initiative by Priyanka Barve and Sarang Kulkarni, dedicated to presenting original works rooted in India’s classical, devotional and cultural traditions. Through carefully curated productions, the initiative brings together traditional compositions and contemporary musical expression while remaining faithful to the spirit of the original music.
