Sunitha Upadrashta

Tarigonda Vengamamba was a poet and staunch devotee of Lord Venkateswara in the 18th century. Her first poem was Tarikonda Nrusimha Satakam and it was followed by Nrusimha Vilasa Katha, Siva Natakam and Balakrishna Natakam as Yakshaganam and Rajayogamrutha Saram, a Dwipada Kavyam, Vishnu Parijatham, Chenchu Natakam, Rukmini Natakam, Jala Krida Vilasam, Mukthi Kanthi Vilasam (all Yaksha Ganams), Gopi Natakam (Golla Kalapam-Yakshaganam), Rama Parinayam, Sri Bhagavatham, Sri Krishna Manjari, Tatva Keerthanalu and Vashista Ramayanam (Dwipada), Sri Venkataachala Mahatyam (Padya Prabhandam) and Ashtanga Yoga, Saram (Padyakruthi).

Sunitha traveled extensively across 19 foreign countries offering her exclusive live performances across the world as an artist. Countries include USA (almost every year since 1999), UK, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, SriLanka, Thailand, Japan, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Mauritius. She was invited by various organisations and associations like Telugu Association of North America (TANA), Bay Area Telugu association (BATA), European Telugu Association (ETA) and the American Telugu Association (ATA) and in 2018 by the Tennessee Telugu Samithi (TTS) for their Ugadi annual celebrations in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2009, she started her Melodious Moments with Sunitha musical journey which most recently in 2019 was organised in 5 major USA cities by various associations like Bay Area Telugu association, Charlotte Telangana association, North East Ohio Telugu association, Telugu association of Indiana, Telugu association of Southern California. Melodious Moments with Sunitha 2019 series in US created a huge sensation across the cities San Jose, Charlotte, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Los Angeles. The event in Indianapolis witnessed its performance in the iconic Old National Center.Performed live at SATC-South African Telugu Community's Musical Concert in South Africa 4 November 2018 which was one of the biggest successful musical event for Telugu people living in South Africa.

Sunitha played the lead role in her first short film Raagam, directed by Sree Chaitu. The short film was also nominated for SIIMA, 2017 in short film category.

Annamayya Paataku Pattabhishekam is a mega in-house prestigious program taken up by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams in the year 2016 as a musical tribute to the saint-poet Tallapaka Annamacharya. Taḷḷapāka Annamācārya (Annamayya), widely regarded as the Andhra Pada kavitā Pitāmaha (Grandfather of Telugu songwriting) was a 15th-century Hindu saint, and is the earliest known Indian musician in Carnatic music to compose songs called sankirtanas in praise of the god Venkateswara.

She got married at the age of 19 to Kiran Kumar Goparaju who works in the media and they later got divorced. The couple has two children, A boy and a girl – Aakash Goparaju and Shreya Goparaju. Shreya sang her debut song, "Tick... Tick... Tick..." in Telugu movie Savyasachi.

Sunitha was part of numerous private album recordings. Meera padavali and Aanota – Manasu palike vela are her two most known works composed by her Guru Kalaga Krishna Mohan. She also featured in the private album Sri Ramachandra Krupalu, a bhajan by Tulsi Das and produced by Sunithanmusic.com.

Every day is a festival day in Tirumala. On each specific day, the Lord of Lords blesses his devotees in a specific ritual during the week days. These rituals are categorized as weekly "pujas". Limited number of devotees are allowed to take part in these weekly sevas on the issuance of limited number of tickets. In an attempt to bring these weekly "seva" more closer to larger devotees, SVBC came up with a concept of performing the same weekly rituals as they get performed on Lord Venkateshwara's main deity on a replica "set" so that the recording could get aired in SVBC channel on every weekday. VISESHA PUJA (ON MONDAYS), ASHTADALA – PADA PADMAARADHANA (ON TUESDAYS), SAHASRA KALASABHISHEKAM (ON WEDNESDAYS), TIRUPPAVADA SEVA (ON THURSDAYS), POOLANGI SEVA (ON THURSDAYS), ABHISHEKAM (ON FRIDAYS)

Sunitha presented devotional songs in the presence of Bhagawan on two different occasions. On Friday evening, 15 August 2008, She sang many light devotional songs and most of them were in Telugu. She was lost in the joy and ecstasy as she sang and Swami too was very happy listening to her. After she completed her planned quota of 6–7 songs, Swami asked her to sing some more. She sang one more and when Swami asked her to sing another, she seemed so very thrilled and happy. She also sang a Meera bhajan and finally concluded with Swami's bhajan, "Giridhara Naagara Kunja Vihaari" which everyone followed. Bhagawan had many words of encouragement for the singer and he very lovingly blessed her. The other concert in Prasanthi nilayam by Sunitha was on 19 November 2008 and this program too lasted for an hour.

Celebrating this success, Melodious Moments with Sunitha unveiled its first live show in Hyderabad on 4 August 2019 in Shilpakala vedika, the prestigious cultural auditorium and convention center in Hyderabad. The journey of Melodious Moments with Sunitha then announced its world tour moving across various cities and towns in Telugu states and USA Hyderabad : 04-08-2019, Vizag : 11-08-2019, Thirupathi : 28-09-2019, Nellore : 29-09-2019 , Philadelphia : 10-10-2019, San Diego : 26-10-2019, Tampa : 27-10-2019, AshBurn : 02-11-2019, Raleigh : 03-11-2019, San Ramon : 09-11-2019, Austin : 10-11-2019, SanJose : 15-11-2019, Seattle : 16-11-2019, Rajahmundry : 26-01-2020, Guntur : 23-02-2020 and still continuing..

Sunitha traveled extensively across 19 foreign countries offering her exclusive live performances across the world as an artist. Countries include USA (almost every year since 1999), UK, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, SriLanka, Thailand, Japan, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Maurutis

Sunitha stepped in to the world of dubbing quite unwillingly and eventually her ease at voice modulations made her the most sought dubbing artist for all the lead heroines ever after release of the movie Choodalani Undi in the year 1998 starring Mega star Chiranjeevi and Soundarya, in which she gave her voice to Soundarya. She achieved a very rare feat as a voice-over artist in Telugu film industry with a record breaking contribution of lending voice to 110+ actresses spread across 750+ films. The numbers by themselves speak volume about her career as a voice-over artist. She also holds a record of giving her voice for 60 movies in a single year. Gautamiputra Satakarni is her 750th movie as a dubbing artist in which she gave her voice to Shriya Saran. It is quite uncommon to see movie dialogues of female lead roles getting quiet popular which was witnessed in Jayam, Godavari movie dialogues delivered by singer Sunitha as a dubbing artist.

She has begun her singing career as a playback singer in films at an age of 17. Sasi Preetham, a music director first gave her a chance to sing in her debut film Gulabi and her debut song is "Ee Vela Lo Neevu" written by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri. She sang single card for the National Film Award movie in Kannada Bhoomi Geetha in 1997, music composed by Ilaiyaraaja. Apart from that she also sang Telugu TV serial title songs such as Ruturagalu & Antarangalu. She received her first Nandi Award from the state of Andhra Pradesh for singing title song of Antharangalu in 1999.

Sunitha's commercial singing career began in the year 1995 with the movie Gulabi and has established herself as a leading playback singer of Telugu Film Industry with her mellifluous voice. She is also known as an anchor and host for music based programs and flagship programs, one among them was anchoring the historical Amaravati foundation-laying ceremony in the year 2015. Sunitha is also associated as a judge to musical reality shows in various channels. Her contributions as a voice-over artist giving voice to over 110 actresses in more than 750 films.

Sunitha Upadrasta (born 10 May 1978) is a playback singer, anchor, host, dubbing artist & actress in the Telugu film industry, also known as Tollywood. She has received a National Award from All India Radio under light music category, two Film fare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer one each for Telugu and Kannada, 9 Nandi Awards; the highest award ceremony for excellence in Telugu cinema, theater, television, and Lifetime achievements in Indian cinema, presented annually by the earlier Government of combined state Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. She received her first Nandi award in the year 1999 and bagged the prestigious awards in a row for the years 2002 to 2006 and again for the years 2010 to 2012. She was also honored with Lata Mangeshkar Best Singer Award for 2011 by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. In the year 2019, Sunitha was honored with New Jersey state recognition award by the Senate and General assembly of the state of New Jersey passing a resolution to salute her excellence and contributions to the world of music and Indian Cinema, a rare felicitation given to an Indian artist by the state of New Jersey.

Sunitha was born on 10 May 1968 in Vijayawada & was raised in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh into a music loving family. Her parents Upadrasta Narasimha Rao and Sumathi (Maiden Name Malladi) are well known to music lovers at Vijayawada and Guntur.