Kaushiki Chakraborty

Vidushi Kaushiki Chakraborty (born 24 October 1980) is an Indian classical vocalist and a composer.

She attended Sangeet Research Academy, and was one of the exponents of Patiala gharana.

Her repertoire covers pure classical, Khyals, Dadras, Thumris, Bhajans etc. and several other forms of Indian music.

Kaushiki was born on 24 October 1980 in Kolkata.

She is the daughter of Chandana Chakraborty and the Padma Bhushan recipient Indian classical singer, Ajoy Chakraborty.

She had an interest in music from the age of two.

She accompanied her father on world tours of music performances since the late 1980s.

She sang her first song in public, a tarana, at age 7, at the Calcutta Rowing Club.

At age ten, she started learning Indian classical music at the academy of Jnan Prakash Ghosh who was also her father's guru.

She has not only specialized in rendering of Khyals and Thumri but she has also learned Carnatic music from Vidwan Balamurali Krishna from 2002.

She completed her schooling at Patha Bhavan School, Kolkata.

In 2002, she graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated undergraduate women's college of the University of Calcutta, in Kolkata with a first class degree in Philosophy.

She also obtained a master's degree in philosophy from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Chakraborty has participated in many major concerts.

Apart from rendering Khyals in her performances, she has occasionally adopted contemporary form of Indian pop music.

She performed at the Dover Lane Music Conference from the age of 20 and continued participating for the next 5 years.

In her recitals, she presents a mature and rhythmical swing succeeded by unrestrained taans in three and-a-half octaves.

In the early stages of her career, in August 2003, Chakraborty gave a live performance in London which was released as the record "Pure".

Her father had accompanied her on harmonium on this occasion.

She also performed at the ITC Sangeet Sammelan in India, the Spring Festival of Music (California), Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Sangeet Mahotsav and Parampara Program (Los Angeles).

She has been acclaimed as "torchbearer of the Patiala tradition" for her musical performances.

Chakraborty hosts a weekly talk-show with singers in the entertainment channel, Ruposhi Bangla.

The talk-show named "Gaan-Golpo ar Gaan" (Songs, Stories and Songs), aired on Sundays, presents music and gossip.

She presents Bengali songs such as Classical, Rabindra Sangeet, Nazrulgeeti, Folk music, Toppa, Adhunik, Bangla Bands, film songs, and remixes.

Her guests who have appeared on this show are Banasree Sengupta, Subhamita Banerjee, Lopamudra Mitra, Joy Sarkar, her father, Ajoy Chakraborty, as the guests.

Chakraborty has formed an exclusive women's musical group called the "Sakhi" (meaning, friend) which is a forerunner in classical music in the country to "celebrate womanhood" and as a dedication to the famous mythological and historical woman of India – Ganga, Saraswati, Durga, Lakshmi, Draupadi, Kunti, Sita, Radha and Meera.

Later, she joined the ITC Sangeet Research Academy from where she graduated in 2004, and was also groomed by her father at his Shrutinandan school of music in Kolkata.

She is the recipient 2005 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music in the Asia-Pacific category.

She is the daughter of Hindustani classical vocalist, Ajoy Chakraborty and she has held performances with him as well as her husband, Parthasarathi Desikan.

In the two-day celebration in honour of vocalist Kishori Amonkar in recognition of her 60 years contribution to music held at Pune on 14 February 2011, Chakraborty rendered raga Todi.

Two other artists, Kalapini Komkali, daughter and disciple of Pt. Kumar Gandharva and Nandini Bedekar of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, also rendered bandishes in the same raga at the same venue during the morning session.

Bharat Kamat on the tabla and Suyog Kundalkar on the harmonium provided support to all three artists.

In the unique musical sessions organized by Mumbai's National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), ragas in different time-cycles were presented on 18 September 2011 by three vocalists which included Kaushiki Chakraborty, Ulhas Kashalkar, and Devaki Pandit.

This rendering was a departure from the normal evening concerts, and the ragas were sung in time periods appropriate to each raga, starting from early morning till evening.

The first programme of the group was planned to be held on 20 January 2015 at Kala Mandir, Mumbai.

Chakraborty was the vocalist and the other members of this group were Shaoni Talwalkar on the tabla, Mahima Upadhyay on the pakhwaj, Debopriya Chatterjee on the flute, Nandini Shankar on the violin while the Kathak dance performance was by Bhakti Deshpande.

They are daughters or grand daughters or disciples of famous Hindustani musicians.

Chakraborty presented this musical ensemble with her group at the Carnegie Hall in October 2015; the programme was of 90 minutes duration.

In 2020, she was awarded Nari Shakti Puraskar.

Kaushiki is also a trained Carnatic Classical Vocalist.