Joydeep Mukherjee

Domain: Sarod, Sursingar, Mohanveena | PMO Awardee | Influencer | Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee | LIVE Concert Performer | Digital Concert Curator | Guest Speaker on TV Interviews

Genre: #IndianClassical #Sarod #Sursingar #Mohanveena #Concert #RecordingStudio 

Location: Kolkata, India

Journey

THE YOUNG CLASSICAL VIRTUOSO

“A few days ago, ‘Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar were conferred these awards were given away to emerging, talented artists in the field of music and performing arts. These, along with the rising popularity of the art and music world are also contributing to their enrichment. These also include artists who have breathed new life into those instruments, whose popularity was decreasing with time. Now listen carefully to this tune (A tune plays for sometime). Do you know what instrument is this? It could be possible that you may not be aware of it! The name of this musical instrument is SURSINGAR and this tune has been composed by Joydeep Mukherjee. Joydeep Ji is among the youth honoured with the Ustad Bismillah Khan Award It had become rare to hear tunes of this instrument since the late 50’s 60’s, but Joydeep is persevering towards making the Sursingar popular once again“, said the honourable Prime Minister of India – Shree Narendra Modi on 98th edition of Mann ki Baat, on 26th February, 2023.

In his Sarod, Sursingar, & Mohanveena playing, Joydeep displays 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.

Multi instrumentalist Joydeep Mukherjee is one of the most promising performer and upcoming artists of Sarod and the rare cum extinct instruments – the Mohanveena and Sursingar. He belongs to the traditional Senia Shahjehanpur Gharana. Born in 1982, he took to playing the Sarod since 1987 from an early age of four years under the able guidance and tutelage of illustrious Guru, Sangeetacharya Pranab Kumar Naha one of the notable disciples of the legendary musician Sangeetacharyya Late Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra and continuing his taalim under him till date. Since 2013, Joydeep is also taking his taalim on layakari and bolbani from the Tabla exponent Pandit Debashish Sarkar, a disciple of Late Pandit Kanai Dutta and Late Pandit Gnan Prakash Ghosh.

FIRST TRYST WITH MUSIC, FORMATIVE YEARS & MUSICAL CAREER

Joydeep Mukherjee belongs to a family of music lovers. His mother, learnt Dhrupad Dhamar for a very brief period under Ustad Drabir Khan and then moved to Guitar (both classical and light), while his father learnt vocal music for 10 years. When he was 4, on the auspicious day of Saraswati Puja of 1987, he was handed over to Pranab Kumar Naha, who was one of the notable disciples of Late Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra for 22 years. In 2012, Pandit Pranab Naha advised him to go to Pandit Debasish Sarkar, the tabla wizard, to take taalim on the intricacies of various taals, laykaris and music presentations.

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 Pandit L K Pandit, Late Pandit Shrikant Bakre, Bharat Ratna Late Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Padma Vibhusan Vidushi Prabha Atre, Padma Vibhusan Late Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Padma Bhusan Late Pandit 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.

EXCELLENCE IN MUSICAL INNOVATIONS AND PROJECT PROPOSAL LEADERSHIP

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 Pandit 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 Padmabhusan Pandit Buddhadev Dasgupta.

Motivated by Pandit Dasgupta’s works on transformations of Tagore’s songs, Joydeep has composed so far 20 classical instrumental bandishes out of Tagore’s songs. He was selected as a Junior Fellow of Instrumental Music by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India in 2021. He has received critical appreciations from several artists, organizations and 1000 media houses nationally globally for reviving and continuous public performance of extinct rare musical instruments of India like the Mohanveena of Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra (1948) & Sursingar of 18th century.  

ACHIEVEMENTS AND LEGACY

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.

He has also been featured by the India and Asia Book of Records for uploading maximum number of videos of Sursingar in 2022. 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.

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