Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande

GHARANA

Jaipur

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Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande is a Hindustani classical vocalist of the Jaipur-Atrauli khayal tradition. Born into a musical family, she completed the Sangeet Visharad of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at the age of 16 and won the President's Gold Medal at the All India Radio (AIR) Music Competition in 1977. After learning the rudiments from the late Pt. Narayanrao Datar, she trained in the Jaipur gayaki under her mother, mentor and guru, Smt. Manik Bhide. In exploring the rare and complex ('achchop') ragas of her gharana, she received guidance from the late Pt. Ratnakar Pai. Her singing combines tonal sweetness with vitality, emotion and a firm grasp of raga grammar. A classicist by training, she is equally at ease with thumri-dadra and bhajans/abhangs, and her fluency in Sanskrit has brought stotras and stutis into her repertoire. Her debut album was released by HMV in 1985, and she has published two books of her own bandishes, "Ragarachananjali" (2004) and "Ragarachananjali 2" (2010). A top grade artiste of AIR and Doordarshan, she has performed at music conferences around the world. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2014, and in 2005 became the first female Hindustani vocalist to receive the Rashtriya Kumar Gandharva Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh. Her other honours include the Government of Maharashtra's Sanskritik Puraskar (2011), Sahyadri Doordarshan's Sangeet Ratna Puraskar (2010), the first Ganatapaswini Mogubai Kurdikar Samman (2014), the Bangalore Kidney Foundation's Pandit Mallikarjun Mansoor Award (2013) and the Pandit Jasraj Gaurav Puraskar.