NCPA Mumbai LIVE Saaz E Bahaar Joydeep Mukherjee

Joydeep Mukherjee, Ustad Bismillah Khan Awardee of Sangeet Natak Academi, performed the rare instrument Sursingar & Mohanveena of Late Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra at the NCPA Mumbai.

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THE MUSICAL GEM
In his SAROD, SURSINGAR & MOHANVEENA playing, ARTIST JOYDEEP MUKHERJEE displayed a predominantly INNOVATIVE & UNIQUE approach, laced with emotion and sensitivity. It is quite intriguing to find in the course of a purely intellectual appreciation coupled with a spontaneous emotional response.
FIRST TRYST WITH MUSIC
Joydeep Mukherjee belonged to the family of music lovers. When he was 4, he was handed over to Pranab Kumar Naha, who was one of the notable disciples of Late Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra for 22 years. In 2012, Pt. Pranab Naha advised him to go to Pt. Debasish Sarkar, the tabla wizard, to take talim on the intricacies of various taals, lay-karis and music presentations.

EARLY LIFE, FORMATIVE YEARS & MUSICAL CAREER

Despite being from a ‘non-Gharanadaar’ family, his performance style and “Raagdari” have been well appreciated several times from a very young age by several legends like Pt. L K Pandit, Late Pt. Shrikant Bakre, Bharat Ratna Late Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Padma Vibhusan Vidushi Prabha Atre, Padma Vibhusan Late Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Padma Bhusan Late Pt. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, and many others. He stood first across various music competitions since childhood and has been a regular artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan for more than 10 years. He started his musical “taalim” in Sarod but ventured out in various other instruments after almost 25 years of learning Sarod. His first public performance was in 1989 at the age of 7 years and till now he had performed across 2000+ music conferences, festivals, baithaks, gatherings and lecture demonstrations, recordings.
Apart from music, Joydeep is equally sound in his studies. He secured 1st Class Honours in his B. Tech and stood 2nd in his MBA securing silver medal from the prestigious Symbiosis International University, Pune. He worked in a multinational company as a marketing and research consultant for 11 years before leaving the lucrative career for music in March 2019.

MUSICAL INNOVATIONS

For Joydeep, music and innovations go hand in hand. He started to revive some of the traditional and extinct instruments which were practiced and performed by the great masters during early and mid-20th century but not practiced or performed now. However, these instruments were an intrinsic part of Senia Shahjehanpur Gharana. He had to re-engineer those instruments and worked with different instrument makers to bring those instruments in new avatar with superior sound and tonal quality, great resonance and unique design. The two instruments that he revived are MOHANVEENA of Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra and SURSINGAR – the 18th century Dhrupad instrument developed by Ustad Jaffer Khan, a direct descendant of Miyan Tansen.
He is also working on the transformation of Rabindrasangeets into instrumental ‘Bandishes’ where many of Tagore’s well-known songs are being metamorphosed into Classical compositions. This is a very unique work in the field of Rabindrasangeet by any living musician and it was inspired by the works of the great architect of his Gharana Padma Bhusan Pt. Buddhadeb Dasgupta.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE FIELD OF MUSIC

Based on his efforts and performance skills, the Sangeet Natak Academi, New Delhi, bestowed the prestigious Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar to Joydeep for 2019. This is the first time in the history of the Academi any artist got an award for both instruments Sursingar & Sarod. Moreover, Joydeep’s work has been appreciated by the Honourable Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi in his 98th edition of Mann Ki Baat.
On the occasion of 100th Episode of Mann Ki Baat, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, invited him to the Raj Bhawan, Kolkata where he was felicitated by the Honourable Governor of West Bengal, Dr. C V Ananda Bose for his remarkable and extraordinary work in the field of music.
The Government of India, Ministry of Culture, has awarded him Fellowship in Instrumental Music for 2021-2022 to continue this research & unique work of metamorphosis of Tagore’s songs into classical instrumental Bandishes.

Various renowned institutions of India like Sangeet Natak Academi, IGNCA, NCPA, ITC SRA, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Doordarshan have invited Joydeep to perform these extinct instruments and archived those recordings. He has been interviewed by several media houses across the world and several documentaries are being made on his work by the national & international news channels. He has performed over 2000+ concerts and 100+ media reports are there in the public domain covering his performances, solo interviews, features & demonstrations.