Meena Banerjee

A disciple of Pandit Amarnath (Kirana Indore Gharana), Meena Banerjee emerged as a gifted vocalist. Simultaneously she was an art administrator with SBKK, Delhi (1977 -1986), ITCSRA Kolkata (1997 – 2002) and visiting lecturer of musicology with Kolkata Films &Television Institute (2005 – 2018).

She is a gold medalist in Sanskrit literature; obtained degee of Sangeet Prabhakar (vocal and tabla), trained in thumri-ghazal, Rabindrasangeet, performed extensively in India and abroad, studied musicology under her guruji and Pandit Kumar Prasad Mukherjee, evaluated reputed pan-Indian music contests such as Purab Anga Gayaki Utsav (a competition organised by VSK Baithak, New Delhi to unearth talents worthy of thumri gayaki), the Classical Voice of India (Dhrupad, Khayal contest organised by Sangeet Milon, Lucknow) and curated-presented Raga Rasa Sahitya on stage to analyse the role of lyrics steeped in melody of ragas in classical music).

These exposures gave her a wider perspective. The archival 52- episode TV serial ‘Raag Rang Shastra ke Sang’ (telecasted by DD Bharati, in 2017), was researched, scripted and edited by her. She wrote an authorised biography of Pandit Vijay Kichlu.

A trilingual writer/translator, she has several such books to her credit and she continues to contribute in select dailies and magazines as a music critic. Her widely respected works fetched her divine blessings of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in the form of Kala Sarathi title (instituted by the World Forum of Art and Culture, ‘Art of Living, Bangalore) along with Media Excellence Award (Music Forum Mumbai), SaMaPa Acharya Abhinav Gupta Award (Delhi), Swayam Siddha Award, Chidakash Kalalay Samman and several other titles.