TheIndian Music Archive

Hindustani classical · 1970s–present

Pandit Kushal Das

A Kolkata sitar and surbahar player known for patient, detailed raga development.

Instrument
SitarSurbahar
Born
20 August 1959, Kolkata, India

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Sitar jugalbandi — Raag Jogkauns, Bengal Classical Music Festival 2017

Jogkauns · Sitar duet with Kalyanjit Das · Performed 2017 · 1:13:20 · Bengal Foundation

Uploaded by the festival's own foundation. Metadata taken from the uploader's title and description; not listened through.

Watch on YouTubeUploaded 2024-02-20

Catalogue entry

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Biography

Life

Kushal Das was born in Kolkata in 1959 into a musical family: his grandfather Bimal Chandra Das played the esraj, and his father Sailen Das and uncle Santanu Das were sitarists. He took advanced sitar training with Professor Sanjoy Banerjee and Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy, and studied vocal music with Pandit Manas Chakraborty and Ramkrishna Basu to deepen his understanding of raga.

He is associated with the Maihar tradition, and commentators note the influence of Pandit Nikhil Banerjee on his playing alongside elements drawn from the Imdadkhani aesthetic. A top-grade artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan, he has performed across India and internationally, including at the Darbar Festival in London in 2010, 2014, 2017 and 2021, and has recorded for Ocora. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2020.

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Musical contribution

What they brought to music

Das takes the alap slowly and builds the raga in clear stages, with balanced layakari rather than display; his surbahar playing, taken up in 2002, extends the same dhrupad-influenced approach into the lower register.

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Lineage & company

Teachers, students and musical connections

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People

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Family

Recognition

Honours and recognition

  • 2020Sangeet Natak Akademi AwardSource: Sangeet Natak Akademi, via Kushal Das — Wikipedia

Community

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Provenance

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