SANGIT MAHABHARATI - Key Persons

Dr. Rajeev Kamath

Job Titles:

Member of the Managing Committee

Nikhil Babu or Dada as he was popularly known, was a charismatic performer who enriched concerts with his dynamic and richly musical tabla solos and sensitive accompaniments. He had performed with four generations of some of India's finest luminaries ranging from Ustad Fayyaz Khan, Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, Ustad Allauddin Khan and Pt. Omkarnath Thakur to Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan and his elder brother Pannalal Ghosh to his contemporaries Ravi Shankar-Ali Akbar Khan-Vilayat Khan, Bhimsen Joshi to his junior colleagues like Nikhil Banerjee, Pandit Jasraj, Salamat Ali-Nazakat Ali, Amanat Ali-Fateh Ali, Amjad Ali Khan, Rais Khan, Shiv Kumar Sharma right up to his brilliant sons Nayan and Dhruba Ghosh. However, during the last three decades of his life, Nikhil Babu gradually inclined exclusively towards solo performances. He was regarded as an absolute authority with the repertoire and stylistics of the Delhi, Ajrada, Farukhabad, Lucknow and Punjab schools of tabla and was among the most prominent soloists of his generation. In fact, Panditji's aesthetic style and knowledge of the art influenced a whole generation of younger tabla players. His solos were often unique for their themes on gharanas, composers or jaatis (chhand or metric scansion of the tabla). While he would captivate his audiences with stormy and powerful executions, the mesmerising effect at the same time that his velvety touch could create would sway his listeners into a musical ecstacy. One can get a glimpse of these in his published recordings under the HMV in 1974 and UNESCO Paris in 1978. Nikhil Babu was not content with the musico-social image given to tabla players of his time and along with a few of his contemporaries made it a point to change this. This intense struggle directly improved the status of all subsequent tabla players. On the international front, he was India's first tabla soloist to be invited to the prestigious music festivals of Aldeborough and Edinburgh in 1958, Bratislava in 1980 and 1982, Helsinki, Rome and Athens in 1985 and the UNESCO Paris in 1978. In 1974, he formed the group TRAYA along with his two sons Nayan and Dhruba. The trio performed, recorded, lectured and taught extensively at renowned universities across Europe, U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Australia and the Far East till 1985, receiving acclaimed critiques and reviews in the New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine, the Tribune de Geneve, the Village Voice of New York, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Kansas City Times and so on.

Pandit Nikhil Ghosh - Founder

Job Titles:

FOUNDER

Pandit Nikhil Ghosh trained his sons Nayan Ghosh in tabla, sitar and vocal music, Dhruba Ghosh in sarangi and daughter vocalist Tulika Ghosh, shaping them into some of India's finest artistes today. Among his other notable disciples have been the late Govindarao Parsatwar, Kartick Chandra Ghosh, Eknath Pimpale, Purushottam Paradkar, Datta Yande, Karodilal Bhatt, Gurudas Kamath, Michel Delaporte (France), Gert Wegner (Germany), Keith Manning (Australia), Bhadraksh Munshi, Aneesh Pradhan, Aslam Hussain Khan, Rashid Mustafa, Shiv & Ravi Naimpally and Ashish Ghosh. Among several awards and accolades he received in his lifetime, Nikhil Babu was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 1990 and the Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award in 1995. In 1955 Nikhil Ghosh married Usha Nayampally who selflessly stood by him in all his endeavours. Her unstinted support and active participation have played a significant role in his success.