Shiva Shankar

Shiva Shankar was born in Kathmandu, Nepal on 22nd February 1932. He is a Nepali singer and music composer and has acted in various movies. His mother is Ram Maya, and his father is Man Bahadur, who used to teach Newari music to the children in the local community. His father inspired him and he gives the credits to his father for his style of music, although his father died when he was young still he learned a lot from him. Shiva had his primary and secondary education in Kathmandu but never received any professional training in music.

After he had become an established singer, he earned a graduation degree in classical music from Kalanidhi Sangeet College in Nepal. An excellent music composer with about 1200 Nepali songs in his bag for which Shiva has composed extraordinary music and has also received various prestigious awards and earned a lot of respect. He has also produced songs of different genre including devotional, cultural, love and patriotic songs. In 1951 he started to work in Radio Nepal and was the head of creative thinking and was vested with the task of discovering and sharpens new talents and was also asked to manage and produce new songs in the studio. Nati Kaji and Shiva founded Radio Nepal in order to provide new paths for the upcoming singers and musicians in Nepal; all this was done to promote and uplift music in Nepal and soon it did not support singers in Nepal but also provided platforms for the artists from Darjeeling. Shiva was a terrible person he not only created music but also took the responsibility of promoting it everywhere and providing them with the necessity for it; his work for Nepal music industry in commendable, and his contribution will always remain unforgotten.

Shiva wanted to create a new style of music for which he regularly mixed music and experimented to create a fusion; he wanted to modernize music and not just compose it. Shiva has also acted in the first feature film in Nepal, “Mama” but never took acting as a career but made a few appearances in movies. In 1956, he married Bhadra Kumari Manandhar; she gave birth to three sons. Despite having an excellent music career, his children did not follow him and Badra was left to a financial breakdown and had to support her family by starting a business. Shiva died on 14th November 2004 as he was at the final stage of liver cancer, his contributions are unmatchable, and his works will be of great importance to the industry.