Kishori Amonkar: A Genius And An Institution!

Kishori Amonkar[a] (10 April 1932 – 3 April 2017) was an Indian classical vocalist, belonging to the Jaipur gharana, or a community of musicians sharing a distinctive musical style. She is considered to be one of the foremost classical singers in India. She was a performer of the classical genre khyal and the light classical genres thumri and bhajan. Amonkar trained under her mother, classical singer Mogubai Kurdikar also from the Jaipur gharana, but she experimented with a variety of vocal styles in her career. Amonkar's initial training in music was by her mother, the classical vocalist Mogubai Kurdikar. She has stated in an interview that her mother was an exacting teacher, initially teaching her by singing phrases and making Amonkar repeat them. In the early stages of her career, she travelled with her mother to performances, accompanying her on the tanpura while Kurdikar sang.

Amonkar's career as a classical vocalist grew in the 1960s and 70s. Prior to this, she briefly stopped performing because of an illness that affected her ability to sing. Amonkar has said that she used this hiatus in her career to consider and develop her own style of singing, that transcended classical schools (gharanas) of music. Amonkar has also spoken about the treatment of women performers as classical musicians, noting that the experience of watching her mother perform informed her own approach to professionalism and fair treatment, particularly when it comes to ensuring that musicians are paid well for their performances. On one notable occasion, she refused to perform because the audience was badly behaved, emphasising the importance of respecting the performers during a concert.