Archive for October 2013
Ustad Imrat Khan (Sitar)
USTAD
IMRAT KHAN (born
17 November 1935) is a leading sitar and surbahar player.
He is the younger brother of sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan.
Imrat was born in Calcutta into a
family of musicians tracing its pedigree back for several generations, to the
court musicians of the Mughal rulers. His father was Enayat
Khan (1895–1938), recognised as a leading sitar and surbahar player of his
time, as had been his grandfather, Imdad Khan (1848–1920), before
him. His father died when Imrat was a child, so he was raised by his mother,
Bashiran Begum and her father, singer Bande Hassan Khan. In 1944, the family
moved with rising star Vilayat Khan, Imrat's elder brother,
to Bombay where both the brothers learned extensively from
uncle Wahid Khan, Enayat Khan's brother. Wahid Khan was one of
the greatest surbahar players of his generation and a top-level sitar player,
and taught Imrat on the instruments in the family style, known as the
Imdadkhani gharana (school), or Etawah Gharana, after a village
outside Agra where Imdad Khan lived.
In 1952 Vilayat and Imrat moved in together
in Calcutta. They performed together for many years. From the 1960s
onwards, Imrat has performed and recorded solo, playing both sitar and
surbahar.
For decades, Imrat has recorded extensively on
both his instruments. His full performance practice starts with a surbahar alap
in dhrupad ang (embellished with more romantic touches),
followed by a shorter alap on the sitar leading into gat in traditional
Imdadkhani style. (Sitar players such as Ravi Shankar and Nikhil
Banerjee added bass strings to their sitars to achieve at least some of
the surbahar's lower range on a single instrument).
He has toured in Europe, the Americas,
and East and Southeast Asia. Surbahar players are rare today,
and Imrat is the main living exponent.
Imrat has five
sons, Nishat, Irshad, Wajahat and Shafaatullah,and
Azmat Khan , now only eight; the first four sons are all classical musicians:
Nishat plays the sitar, Wajahat concentrates on thesarod and Shafaatullah
is accomplished on sitar, tabla, and surbahar. The surbahar
tradition is largely upheld by Irshad (also a sitar player), who has made some
very traditional solo recordings.
Imrat Khan currently spends a portion of each
year teaching classical Indian music and instructing sitar students
at Washington University in Saint Louis. In addition to his
sons, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and George
Harrison of The Beatles (who also studied under Ravi Shankar)
have been some of his famous students.
Nishat Khan (Sitar)
NISHAT KHAN is
an Indian sitar player and son of surbahar player Imrat
Khan.
Khan was born in the mid-1960s in Kolkata. He performed
with musicians of the genres jazz, Gregorian chant, flamenco and Western
classical music. In August 2002, Khan performed for the Diet of Japan in
Tokyo and played in 2004 at the Crossroads Guitar Festival. Khan is
based in Beverly Hills, California, and works as a visiting professor at
the University of California, Los Angeles.
Lady Gaga
STEFANI JOANNE ANGELINA GERMANOTTA (born
March 28, 1986), known by her stage name LADY GAGA, is an American
singer-songwriter, record producer, activist, businesswoman, fashion designer
and actress. Born and raised in New York City, where she lives, Lady
Gaga primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly
attended New York University's Tisch School of the Artsbefore
withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She soon began performing in the
rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side. By the end of 2007,
record executive and producer Vincent Herbert signed her to his label
Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. Initially working as
a songwriter at Interscope Records, her vocal abilities captured the attention
of recording artist Akon, who also signed her to Kon Live
Distribution, his own label under Interscope.
In 2008, Lady Gaga came to prominence with her debut studio
album, The Fame, which was a critical and commercial success. The
record included the international number-one tracks "Just Dance" and
"Poker Face". In 2009, her extended play, The Fame
Monster, was released to a similar reception, and produced the hit singles
"Bad Romance", "Telephone", and "Alejandro". Its
accompanying Monster Ball Tour became one of thehighest-grossing
concert tours of all time. Lady Gaga's second album, Born This Way (2011),
topped albums charts in most major markets and generated chart-topping songs
"Born This Way", "Judas", and "The Edge of Glory".
Her third album, Artpop, is planned for release on November 11th,
2013.
Influenced by David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna,
and Queen, Lady Gaga is recognized for her flamboyant, diverse and outré
contributions to the music industry through her fashion, performances and music
videos. As of October 2011, she had sold an estimated 23 million albums and 64
million singles worldwide and her singles are some of the best-selling
worldwide. Her achievements include five Grammy Awards and
13 MTV Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga has consecutively appeared on Billboard magazine's
Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010), ranked fourth inVH1's
list of 100 Greatest Women in Music, is the fourth best selling digital singles
artist in US according to RIAA, is regularly placed on lists composed
by Forbes magazine, including The World's 100 Most
Powerful Women from 2010 to 2013, and was named one of the most
influential people in the world by Time magazine. Besides
her musical career, she involves herself with humanitarian causes
and LGBT activism.
Continually experimenting with new musical ideas and images,
Gaga's musical and performance style is the subject of much analysis and
scrutiny from critics. She professes that she is "liberating" herself
by constantly reinventing her sound and image, insisting that she has been
drawn to such a practice since her childhood. Vocally, Gaga possesses the
range of a contralto and exhibits "overwhelming expression,
instinctive vocal phrasing, '80s rock reminiscent chest belts and animalistic
vocal ticks" while being able to move through 2.7 octaves. Refusing
to lip sync, Gaga – whose range is frequently compared to those of Madonna
and Gwen Stefani – has manipulated her vocal style over the course of
her career yet considers Born This Way (2011) "much more
vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of." In
summation of her voice, Entertainment Weekly wrote,
"There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her
voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability,
recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung
power."
The structure of her music is said to echo classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. Her
debut album The Fame (2008) provoked The Sunday Times to
assert "in combining music, fashion, art and technology, Gaga evokes
Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa 'Hollaback Girl', Kylie Minogue 2001 or
Grace Jones right now" and a critic from The Boston Globe to
comment that she draws "obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen
Stefani... in her girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats." Music
critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Everything about Gaga came
from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just
ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded
with R&B-ish beats." The follow-up The Fame Monster (2009),
saw Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam,
perky ABBA disco and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q"
while Born This Way (2011) also draws on the records of her childhood
and still has the "electro-sleaze beats and Eurodisco chorus chants"
of its predecessor but includes genres as diverse as opera, heavy metal, disco,
and rock and roll. "There isn't a subtle moment on the album,
but even at its nuttiest, the music is full of wide-awake emotional
details," wrote Rolling Stone, who concluded: "The more
excessive Gaga gets, the more honest she sounds."Although her early lyrics
have been criticized for lacking intellectual stimulation, "Gaga does
manage to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace." She
admits that her songwriting has been misinterpreted; her friend and
blogger Perez Hilton articulated her message in a clearer way:
"you write really deep intelligent lyrics with shallow concepts."
Gaga opined, "Perez is very intelligent and clearly listened to my record
from beginning to end, and he is correct." "I love songwriting.
It's so funny – I will just jam around in my underwear or I could be washing my
dishes. I wrote several songs just at the piano," she confesses. Gaga
believes that "all good music can be played at a piano and still sound
like a hit." She has covered a wide variety of topics in her songs:
while The Fame (2008) meditates on the lust for stardom, The
Fame Monster (2009) expresses fame's dark side through monster
metaphors. Born This Way (2011) is sung in English, French,
German and Spanish and includes common themes in Gaga's controversial
songwriting like love, sex, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation,
sexuality, freedom and individualism.
Tag :
Singers
Anup Jalota
ANOOP JALOTA,
also ANUP JALOTA, (born 29 July 1953) is an Indian singer
and musician, best known for his performances in the Hindu devotional
music bhajan and the Urdu form of poetry, ghazal.
He is popularly known as the "Bhajan Samraat" (Emperor
of Bhajans). Padma
Shri for 2012 has been conferred upon him in the field of Art-Indian
Classical Music- Vocal by Government of India.
Anup Jalota was born in Nainital, Uttarakhand to
Purushottam Das Jalota, a renowned exponent of bhajan and hails from
the Sham Chowrasi Gharana of Punjab. He was educated in Lucknow. Anup's
brother, Ajay Jalota, currently lives in California. He has one elder
brother Anil Jalota and two sisters Anjali Dhir and Anita Mehra.
Jalota started his musical career as a chorus singer in All
India Radio. He is usually backed by a santoor player, dholak player, sarod player, sarangiplayer, violinist, sitar player, tabla player
and guitarist. Some of his popular bhajans include: Aisi Lagi Lagan, Main
Nahi Makhan Khayo, Rang De Chunariya, Jag Me Sundar Hai Do Naam, and Chadariya
Jhini Re Jhini. He was also the presenter of the program Dharam Aur Hum,
telecast in Star Plus during 2002 - 05 period.
He met Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj in Mumbai and
agreed to release several CDs of his compositions. In 2008 he recorded the
title song "Golden Memorable Yaadein" for the CD "Noorani
Chehra" produced by Shaukat (Sam) Kassam to commemorate the Golden Jubilee
of HH the Aga Khan.
Anup Jalota's first two marriages ended in divorce. One of his
marriages was with Sunali Rathod, wife of Roop Kumar Rathod
Currently, Anup Jalota is married to Medha Jalota, niece of former
Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral. They have a son Aryamann (born in
1996), who is studying in Mumbai.
Tag :
Singers
Alka Yagnik
ALKA YAGNIK (born 20 March 1966 in Kolkata, West Bengal,
India) is amongst the best-known playback singers of Hindi cinema
with a career spanning three decades. She is a record seven-time winner
from a record of 35 nominations of the Filmfare Award for Best Female
Playback Singer, a two-time recipient of the National Film Award as
well as several other music awards listed below. Further, as many as 20 of her
tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time"
review.
Alka Yagnik was
born in Kolkata on 20 March 1966 in a Brahmin family. Her
mother Shubha Yagnik was a singer of Indian classical music. She received
her school education from Modern High School for Girls. In 1972 at the age
of 6, she started singing for Akashvani (All India Radio), Calcutta. At
age 10, her mother brought her to Mumbai as a child singer. She was
advised to wait until her voice matured, but her mother remained determined. On
a subsequent visit, Alka got a letter of introduction to Raj Kapoor from
his Kolkata distributor. Kapoor heard the girl and sent her with a letter to
noted music director Laxmikant. Impressed, Laxmikant gave her two
alternatives – an immediate start as a dubbing artist or a later break as a
singer;they settled for the latter.
Alka Yagnik is classically trained. She began singing bhajans for
Akashvani (All India Radio), Calcutta. at the age of six. Her first song
was for the film Payal Ki Jhankaar in (1980), followed byLaawaris (1981)
with the song "Mere Angane Mein", followed by the film Hamari
Bahu Alka (1982). She got her big break with the song "Ek Do
Teen" from the film Tezaab (1988). The song won her
a Filmfare Best Female Playback Award.
She has sung in many languages other than Hindi,
including Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, Manipuri, Nepali, Rajasthani, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, English and Malayalam.
She has worked with Indian composers such as Kalyanji-Anandji, Rahul
Dev Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin
Lalit, Anu Malik, A. R. Rahman, Anand-Milind,Himesh Reshammiya, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, Ismail
Darbar, Aadesh Shrivastava, Viju Shah, M. M. Keeravani, Sajid-Wajid, Bappi
Lahiri, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sandesh Shandilya and many
others.
She has sung maximum duets with Udit Narayan & Kumar
Sanu. She has also sung many duets with Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Vinod
Rathod, Sonu Nigam & Shaan.
She has also sung in many albums such as "Tum Yaad
Aaye", as well as "Tum Aaye" and "Shairana" in which
she worked in close collaboration with award-winning lyricist Javed Akhtar and
singer Hariharan. She has also rendered the Hanuman Chalisa and various
devotional songs.
Alka shares the title with Asha Bhosle for the greatest
number of Filmfare Awards won (7) by a single female playback
singer. Alka has also been the judge of various Sa Re Ga Ma Pa
Challenge shows, and Star Voice of India, both singing
competition shows, in which children or adults of various age groups compete
with one another to win the award for best vocals. In addition to this, her
song "Chamma Chamma" from China Gate was featured in
the song "Hindi Sad Diamonds" from the soundtrack of the film Moulin
Rouge!. She has also been performing in live concerts around the world.
In 2012 she along with Sonu Nigam sang a song 'Shiksha
Ka Suraj' as part of National Literacy Mission of India for which she was
felicitated by Union Minister For Human Resource DevelopmentKapil Sibal. Further
in 2012, on occasion of 100 years of Hindi Cinema, her song "Taal Se Taal
Mila" from the movie Taal was voted as the best song of
the century in a poll conducted by DesiMartini, Hindustan Times and Fever
104. Also her song "Choli Ke Peeche" from the movie Khalnayak was
voted as the hottest song of the century in a poll conducted by Sanona. [
She has also been involved in various projects pertaining to
empowerment of the girl child.
Tag :
Singers
Udit Narayan
UDIT NARAYAN JHA popularly known as Udit Narayan, is a Nepali playback
singer singing Bollywood in commercial. He has sung in around 32
language including Hindi, Bhojpuri, Nepali, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Urdu,
Garhwali, Sindhi, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese,Maithili and Bengali language
cinema. He has won three National Film Awards and five Filmfare
Awards. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government
of India and also awarded the Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu by the
late King of Nepal 'Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev' .
Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December 1955 in a village
called Bhardaha in the Saptari district, Nepal. His
father was Hare Krishna Jha and his mother was Bhuwaneshwari Devi.
Narayan studied at P.B. School, Rajbiraj, where he passed
his S.L.C. (class 10) and later obtained his intermediate from Ratna
Rajya Laxmi Campus, mostly known as RR campus Kathmandu.
Udit Narayan began his career in Nepal singing for Radio
Nepal as a staff artist for Maithili and Nepali folk
songs. He sang many popular Nepali folk, modern songs on Radio Nepal. His
first film playback singing was for Nepali film Sindur. It was
a comedy song for famous Nepali comedians GopalRaj Mainali (Chankhe) and
Basundhara Bhushal (Nakkali). It was a duet song with Sushma Shrestha —
now known as Poornima in Hindi films. After eight years in that role, the
Indian embassy offered him the chance to study classical music at a prestigious
school in Bombay, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, on a music scholarship. He moved to
Bombay in 1978.
Udit Narayan has sung more than 25,000 songs in more than 34
languages. He is one of the most acclaimed singers of the present generation.
He got his first break in 1980, when noted music director (composer) Rajesh
Roshan asked him to playback for the Hindi film Unees Bees and
was given the opportunity to sing with the veteran Mohammed Rafi. He
provided playback for a number of films, the most notable being Sannata (1981), Bade
Dil Wala (1983) and Tan-Badan (1986). The success
story of his career began in 1988 when Anand-Milind gave him the
opportunity to sing all the songs for the successful Bollywood movie Qayamat
Se Qayamat Tak, earning him a Filmfare Award. The film also
brought actor Aamir Khan, actress Juhi Chawla and playback
singer Alka Yagnik to stardom. After the success of Qayamat
Se Qayamat Tak, he became one of the leading playback singers in the Indian
film industry.
Narayan is a resident of Mumbai. He has married twice: to
Ranjana Narayan Jha and Deepa Narayan Jha. His second wife, Deepa Narayan, whom
he married in 1985, is a singer. The two recorded an album together
titled Dil Deewana. They have son, Aditya Narayan, who is a
former child actor, singer and television presenter. Aditya Narayan started his
singing for child artists in Nepali film with his father before starting his
singing career in Hindi movies in the 1990s and also acted in a few films.
Tag :
Singers
Atif Aslam
ATIF ASLAM (born in Wazirabad, Punjab, Pakistan as Muhammad
Atif Aslam) is a Pakistani pop singer and film actor,
and makes cameo appearances in Bollywood (Indian) films. His debut as
an actor was in the 2011 film Pakistani movie Bol. He has generated
numerous chart-topping songs, and is known for his vocal belting technique. Atif
is a recipient for the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's highest
civilian decorations.
Atif was born
into a Muslim family in Wazirabad, Punjab, Pakistan. He
began his education in kindergarten at Kimberley Hall School, Larkana.
In 1991 he then moved to Rawalpindi where he continued his studies in
St. Paul's Cambridge School, Satellite Town, Rawalpindi. Atif returned
to Lahore in 1995 where he continued his studies in Divisional
Public School, Lahore. He continued onwards to his FSC in PAF Inter
College Lahore. Atif eventually graduated with a Bachelor's degree.
Even though Atif always admired Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida
Parveen. his first love was for cricket and he dreamed of representing his
nation as a cricketer. He was a fast bowler and his passion for the sport saw
him being selected for the national Under 19 cricket team trials. At one stage
Atif was training to represent his country in the U-19 World Cup. However destiny
had other plans.
Spurred on by his friends he began to sing in public during his
days in college and recorded his first single "Aadat" with his pocket
money. Within a matter of weeks "Aadat" went viral online and soon he
became a household name on the basis of just that one song. On 17 July 2004 the
first album titled Jal Pari. by Atif Aslam was released. On
the outset, the album stood on the success of “Aadat” but as the weeks progressed,
everyone began to recognize that Atif was blessed with incredible talent and
was not merely a one hit wonder.
Blessed with prodigious raw talent and a passion for music, Atif's
decision to pursue music as a career was certainly a brave one as he had no
formal musical training nor did he come from a musical family. Despite his
positive outlook, music and lyrics his massive success and popularity with the
massess was hard for many to fathom. He faced his fair share of critical
commentaries and judgements, however he used all these factors to his advantage
and was courageous enough to continue singing in his own style without giving
an ear to his detractors. In an industry where releasing independent albums
were not the norm, the courage and passion he displayed in his first album
became a solid foundation for his future success.Several songs from his debut
album such as “Bheegi Yaadein”, “Ehsaas”, “Mahi Ve”, “Ankhon Sey” along with
the title track “Jalpari” went on to become major hits and charted across
countries in the subcontinent. Atif Aslam with his dynamic presence and
powerful voice presented his own unique sound. A true original artist, there
was no reference point to his sound at the time. His ability to connect to the
hearts of his listeners backed up with vocal capabilities and memorable
melodies swiftly elevated him to stardom across Pakistan and won him millions
of hearts across India. Many believe this album to be a youth anthem of Pakistan,
encouraging the youth to pursue their dreams and represent their nation in a
positive light.
Following the massive success of Jal Pari, he released
two more solo albums, "Doorie" & "Meri Kahani". Both
albums were massive successes. According to Tips music his solo albums have
sold more than 9 million units globally.
Even as Atif continued to record solo albums he soon found huge
appreciation and acceptance for his talent in India. Within a span of 3 years
he went on to record over two dozen chartbusters for top Bollywood films and
for his work on the movie Race, was nominated for the prestigious Filmfare
Award. He continues to work on top productions and his growing popularity has
seen filmmakers create special music videos to promote their films with his
songs.
Constantly developing as an artist, Atif soon evolved himself into
an exciting concert performer. Following sold out concerts and electrifying
performances throughout his country the demand to watch Atif Aslam perform live
grew across the world with legions of loyal fans growing across nations. People
were amazed to experience the dynamic vocal range Atif was able to deliver in a
live performance. His energy on stage, with charming charisma and a natural
ability to work the crowd swiftly made him the most sought after live performer
in Pakistan and numerous countries across Asia. The artist started performing
to sellout crowds on a regular basis. Fans came to recognize a true artist. The
energy level never reduced but the crowd kept on increasing.
Tag :
Singers
.jpg)
