tander is the daughter of an afghan journalist father, who died when she was a child, and a german teacher mother. she was raised in cologne and her older sister mina tander became an actress. as tander finished high school, she was very close to get a board contract as pop singer. during her vocal training with an opera singer, she realized that she was more into vocal improvisation than the classical singing. she attended piano lessons and founded her own band. from 2002, she studied jazz singing at the conservatory artez in the netherlands. there she graduated with a master of music in 2008. in the following years she played in the netherlands with trumpeter eric vloeimans and with bo van de graaf's i compani, where she made contributions for the albums "fellini" (2004), "garbo" and "extended 2013". in germany she can be heard on soundtracks of the tatort series and two episodes of the zdf film der kriminalist.