Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh (8 May 1909 – 18 February 1997) often known as 'Guru' Jnan Prakash Ghosh was an Indian

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

and

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

player from

Farukhabad gharana Farrukhabad Gharana is one of six prominent playing styles or gharanas of North Indian tabla , in Hindustani classical music, and derives its name from Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh state. History The Farrukhabad Gharana of Tabla was created in th ...

Hindustani classical music Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, ''shastriya sangeet'' (). It is played in instruments like the violin, sita ...

and

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

Early life and background

Born in a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

family with musical background in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

, he was the grandson of Dwarkanath Ghosh (1847–1928), who founded

Dwarkin Dwarkin formally known as Dwarkin & Son, founded in 1875, was an Indian enterprise for the sale of Western and Indian musical instruments based in Kolkata, and focused on the development of the hand-held harmonium. History Dwarkin & Son was foun ...

in 1875 and invented the "Dwarkin

", popular in

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, India. He graduated from the

Scottish Church College Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in A ...

of the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

He was keen in sports (he played soccer,

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

and

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

). He also practised painting, but had to discontinue these due to an eye injury in a soccer match. Then he turned to music. He was trained in vocals by Girija Shankar, Mohammed Sagir Khan and Mohammed Dabir Khan. He took tabla lessons from Masit Khan of the

and became his senior disciple

Career

He was the founder of Sourav Academy of Music and closely associated with the 'Sangeet Research Academy'. He scored music for many Bengali films, of which ''Jadubhatta'', ''Andhare Alo'' and '' Rajlakshmi o Srikanta'' (1958) are worth mentioning. He has composed and directed music to a number of popular gramophone records sung by various artistes. A percussion entitled ''The Drums of India'' He also provided music for the Academy Award nominated animated short ''

Bead Game ''Bead Game'' (French:'' Histoire de perles'') is a 1977 animated short film by Ishu Patel, created by arranging beads into the shapes of real and mythical creatures, who absorb and devour one another, thus, evolving into scenes of modern human wa ...

'', directed by

Ishu Patel Ishu Patel is an animation film director/producer and educator. During his twenty-five years at the National Film Board of Canada he developed animation techniques and styles to support his themes and vision. Since then he has produced animated ...

for the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

. His residence at 25 Dixon Lane in

Bowbazar Bowbazar ( bn, বৌবাজার, also spelt ''Boubazar''; formerly known as Bahubazar) is a neighbourhood of Central Kolkata, in Kolkata district in the Indian state of West Bengal. History On Lt. Col. Mark Wood's map of 1784, the portion o ...

, Kolkata, was frequented by musicians, be it local or those visiting the city, and thus was the venue of several recitals, most notably a Raga Chhayanat performed by

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (2 April 1902 – 23 April 1968) was an Indian Hindustani classical vocalist, from the Patiala gharana. Amongst his students are tabla players Kanai Dutta, Shyamal Bose,

Shankar Ghosh Pandit Shankar Ghosh (10 October 1935 – 22 January 2016) was an Indian tabla player from the Farukhabad gharana of Hindustani classical music. He was an occasional Hindustani classical singer where he followed the Patiala gharana. He was ...

Anindo Chatterjee Pandit Anindo Chatterjee is an Indian tabla player of the Farukhabad gharana school. He was born into a musical family. Chatterjee is a disciple of Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh. As director of the Farrukhabad Gharana of Tabla, founded by Haji ...

, and

Nikhil Ghosh Pandit Nikhil Jyoti Ghosh (28 December 1918 – 3 March 1995) was an Indian musician, teacher and writer, known his proficiency on the percussion instrument of tabla. He founded ''Sangit Mahabharati'', an institution of music in 1956, and perform ...

, Rajkumar Misra, singers Prasun Banerjee,

Ajoy Chakrabarty Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty (born 25 December 1952) is an Hindustani classical vocalist, composer, lyricist and an exponent of the Patiala-Kasur gharana. He was given Padma Bhushan Award, the third highest civilian award in India in 2020. Early li ...

, Suman Ghosh and Arun Bhaduri, and instrumentalist Paul Grant. His birth centenary was celebrated on 7 May 2012, in Kolkata, with screening of documentary of him and performances by various singers.

Discography

* 1968 – Drums of India, Vol. 1 – Gramophone * 1979 – Drums of India, Vol. 2 Gramophone * 1993 – Raga on Keyboard – EMI * 2004 – Dhun – Saregama * 2004 – Raag Charukeshi – Saregama * 2004 – Raag Haripriya – Saregama * 2004 – Raag Jhinjhoti – Saregama * 2004 – Raag Mishra Kalengra – Saregama * 2004 – Raag Shyam Kalyan

Awards and recognition

In 1974, he was awarded the

Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship The Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, also known as Akademi Ratna Sadasyata, is an Indian honour for the performing arts presented by Sangeet Natak Academy. It is "the most prestigious and rare honour" conferred by the Academy and is "restricte ...

the highest honour conferred by the

Sangeet Natak Akademi Sangeet Natak Akademi (The National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama in English) is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India. History It was set up by the Indian education ministry on 31 May 1952 and be ...

, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama. This was followed by the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

in 1984, given by the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

References

External links

*
Jnan Prakash Ghosh
at

last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghosh, Jnan Prakash 1909 births 1997 deaths Hindustani instrumentalists Indian male classical musicians Musicians from Kolkata Scottish Church College alumni University of Calcutta alumni Indian musicologists Tabla players Indian film score composers Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Indian music educators Indian percussionists Bengali people 20th-century Indian composers 20th-century drummers 20th-century Indian male singers 20th-century Indian singers 20th-century musicologists Indian male film score composers