Archana Kanhere was born in a family of a Kirtankar and Tabla player Late Vasudeo R. Upadye. She got all preliminary lessons in music from her father. This helped her in pursuing an academic career in Music. She has a distinction of ranking First in B.A. (Music) from S.N.D.T. college at Pune & stood second in M.A. (Music). She also received training under Vidushi Manik Verma (for 14 years - from 1974), Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki and Pandit Shankar Abhyankar. She also got encouragement for music from harmonium maestro Pandit Govindrao Patwardhan and her husband, Harmonium player Vishvanath Kanhere.

She presents Khayal, Thumari, Marathi Natya Sangeet & has performed in many prestigious music programmes. To name a few, Tansen Samaroha at Gwalior, Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Samaroha at Pune, and NCPA Mumbai.

Two audio cassettes in Classical Vocal are already on Archana Kanhere's credit. One of these has been released by Swar Darshan and the other one is Bandish Vol. 3. Natya Sangeet cassette Pushpa Parag, Matsyagandha Te Mahananda, Preeti-Sudha are Archana's popular Natyasangeet albums. Album "Bhavbhakti Dhara" containes her own Bhajan compositions.

Currently Archana has taken up an assignment of being senior professor in Indian Classical Music for Indian Womans' Club in Bangkok, Thailand.