Kalimpong Pakhawaj player bags prestigious Fulbright grant : Nishant SIngh will be joining the Ali Akbar College of Music in the US after receiving the Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award.

Nishaant Singh will explore how the historic pakhawaj led to tabla wherein the former lost its rare compositions to the latter.

EastMojo, February 17, 2022, Guwahati: Nishaant Singh, son of veteran ‘ShreeMaadal Aacharya’ Padma Shri Kaajee Singh, from Kalimpong will be joining the Ali Akbar College of Music in the United States after receiving the Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award.

A disciple of Pandit Chanchal Kumar Bhattacharya, Nishaant Singh is considered the most promising Pakhawaj player in the region and a torchbearer of Lala Keval Kishan Gharana- Bengal Parampara in this present generation.

Nishaant is the youngest Flex Award winner in the field of Indian classical music instrument Pakhawaj to date and has joined the Ali Akbar College of Music for his research in Pakhawaj under the guidance of Padma Shri Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri.

The Fulbright Fellowship Program, founded by the United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946, is considered to be one of the most widely recognized and prestigious fellowships in the world.

Nishaant Singh is currently a guest lecturer at the Department of Performing Arts, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira College, Kolkata and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music with several distinctions from Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan.

Singh has represented India as a Pakhawaj player at concerts in India and abroad. His Pakhawaj has also featured in numerous background scores of Bollywood films.

An A-grade artiste of All India Radio in folk music, Singh has also been performing and conducting workshops in different universities and music institutions to create awareness about reviving ancient notations and compositions, which is one of his research interests.

During the course of his Fulbright-Nehru Research fellowship at Ali Akbar College of Music, California, he will study on the connections between the pakhawaj parampara of Bengal and the tabla gharana of Lucknow.

Sngh will explore how the historic pakhawaj led to tabla wherein the former lost its rare compositions to the latter and aims to retrieve the forgotten compositions of the pakhawaj of Bengal style from the tabla of the Lucknow gharana to popularize pakhawaj, worldwide, for generations to come.

Courtesy & source