1: Imagine the famous singer Kishori Amonkar is going to visit your school. You have been asked to introduce her to the audience
before her performance. How would you introduce her? Here is some information about Kishori Amonkar you can find on the Internet.
Read the passage and make notes of the main points about:
• her parentage
• the school of music she belongs to
• her achievements
• her inspiration
• awards
Padma Bhushan Kishori Amonkar, widely considered the finest female vocalist of her generation, was born in 1931, daughter of another great artist, Smt. Mogubai Kurdikar. In her early years she absorbed the approach and repertoire of her distinguished mother’s teacher Ustad Alladiya Khan. As her own style developed, however, she moved away from Alladiya Khan’s ‘Jaipur-Atrauli gharana’ style in some respects, and as a mature artist her approach is usually regarded as an individual, if not unique, variant of the Jaipur model.
Kishori Amonkar is a thinker, besotted by what she calls the mysterious world of her raagas. She dissects them with the precision of a perfectionist, almost like a scientist, until the most subtle of shades and emotions emerge and re-emerge.
She is very much inspired by the teachings of the ancient Vedic sages, written at a time when vocal music was highly devotional in character. This soul searching quality of her music, coupled with a very intellectual approach to raaga performance has gained her quite a following in India and has helped to revive the study of khayal.
Significant awards bestowed on this artist include the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1985), the Padma Bhushan (1987), and the highly coveted Sangeet Samradhini Award (considered one of the most prestigious awards in Indian Classical Music) in 1997.
