NRI News

 

NRIs congraulate Prof Kartar Singh for Sangeet Natak Akademi Award

Los Angeles, June 26, 2009
Inder Singh

Prof Kartar Singh, director of the SGPC Gurmat Sangeet Academy received Sangeet Natak Akademi national award on July 15, 2009 from the President of India at Rashterpati Bhavan.

Sangeet Natak Akademi honors each year eminent practitioners of music, dance and theatre. The award symbolizes the highest standard of excellence and achievements on a national basis and also recognizes the sustained individual work of the highest professional order and contribution to the practice and appreciation of these arts through performance, teaching and scholarship.

The octogenarian musician, known as living legend in the field of gurmat sangeet, was honored for his contribution to gurbani. Prof Kartar Singh has penned four books, “Gurbani Sangeet Darpan Part I”, “Gurbani Sangeet Darpan Part II”, “Gurmat Sangeet Darpan” and “Guru Angad Dev Sangeet Darpan”. He has to his credit 372 compositions of ragas.

Prof Kartar Singh started to learn kirtan in 1941 from Giani Gurcharan Singh and Bhai Dalip Singh. He has taught music at Guru Nanak Girls College, Ludhiana, for 27 years and was also the head of the music department for many years at the same college. He also taught at Malwa Central College in Ludhiana.
In 1999, the SGPC appointed Prof. Kartar Singh as director and head of Gurmat Sangeet Akademi at Anandpur Sahib and since then, he has been teaching gurmat sangeet.