Pandit Firoz Dastur

Firoz Dastur was born on 30 September 1919 into a Parsi family in the Grant Road area of Bombay. He was a child performer in the early sound film industry: in 1933 he sang classical songs in Wadia Movietone's first talkie, Lal-e-Yaman, and went on to appear in around fourteen Urdu films, becoming, by the Baithak Foundation's account, the highest paid child actor of his time.

Music drew him away from the studios. The producer Jamshedji Wadia urged him to learn the Kirana gayaki and sent him to the tabla player Kamurao Mangeshkar, who introduced him to Sawai Gandharva. At their first meeting Dastur sang a Bhairavi composition, and his teacher began his taleem with that raga rather than the usual beginners' ragas. He studied with Sawai Gandharva from the age of about thirteen, and took up concert work full time around 1942, leaving films behind. His other guru is named as Pandit K. D. Javkar.

His first major appearance was at the All India music conference in Karachi at seventeen or eighteen, on a platform that also carried Faiyaz Khan and Omkarnath Thakur; Gangubai Hangal and Kumar Gandharva were among the other young artists. He performed from 1941 until 2006, and as a mark of respect for his guru sang at the Sawai Gandharva Sammelan in Pune every year from 1953 to 2008, into his late eighties and despite ill health. He taught at the University of Bombay and at his home, and died in Mumbai on 9 May 2008 after a brief illness.

His singing is recognised by listeners as very close in manner to Abdul Karim Khan's. His disciple Milind Chittal, who studied with him for twelve years, describes a teaching built on sur: tuning the tanpura correctly and matching the voice to it, developing a raga step by step and note by note through vistaar in Yaman, Bhairav and Malkauns before carrying the same principles into other ragas, and elaborate taan exercises. He was patient and selective, teaching one to one at home. The Baithak Foundation holds archival recordings of his singing, including Raga Lalit and Raga Jogiya recorded live in 1962, and a set of his 78 rpm discs.