Kankana Banerjee

Kankana Banerjee is an Indian classical vocalist who was born on April 19, 1946. She received her training in Lucknow under the direction of Ustad Amir Khan Ustad Amir Khan was a well-known Indian classical >> Read More... . She was raised in a wealthy household in the city of Calcutta and was born in Bengali. Mandira Chatterjee, her mother, studied under Shrikrikrishna Narayan Ratanjankar of Lucknow and Tarapada Chakraborty of Kolkata. Radha Kamal Mukherjee, a sociologist and former vice-chancellor of the University of Lucknow, was her grandfather.

Early on in her career, under the guidance and inspiration of her mother, Kankana started her studies in Hindustani Classical music. She started her study under Ustad Amir Khan, an Indore Gharana native, in 1955. In 1960, at the age of 14, she performed in front of an audience for the first time. She sang the Ustad Amir Khan-created Darbari Kanara ‘Tarana’ in the manner of Amir Khusrau in the HMV studio of Bombay. HMV released the song on a limited edition record titled ‘Multifaceted Genius of Amir Khusrau.’ It was published to mark the poet's seventh centenary festivities.

Pandit Pratap Narain, a member of the Mewati Gharana, also accepted Kankana Banerjee as a student. Her career has been marked by many honors, one of which was from the Government of Andhra Pradesh; that is the ‘Kala Saraswati Andhra Ratna Award’. This award was presented to her by Mother Teresa in 1987. She has also performed playback songs based on classical ragas for the movies like ‘Id Mubaraq’ and ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili.’a