Dear Friends,

Thumri is perhaps the most popular genre of Raga music. At the same time this style of singing has widely been used in Film and Non-Film musical creations. If we look far behind then we will be able to find out the origin of this colour and emotion filled vocal singing. In northern part of India Baai-s and Devi-s of some restricted area contributed their hard lives by singing and giving shelter along with entertainment to different great Ustads through their ways of living. We really should always be indebted to them for complete survival of Raga music. The most popular style of Dance, Kathak gave birth to this genre. Various common emotions like exotic love, affection, anger, separation of common people were the sources of making the lyrics of Thumri.  

Thumri and its various branches like Dadra, Kajri, Chaiti, Jhula etc. are almost in dying condition after the demise of Melody Queen Begum Akhtarjee, Sreemati Siddheswari Devijee, Girija Devijee and Shobha Gurtujee. But still the people enjoy the beauty of this genre to maximum extent. So, it is our national responsibility that we should preserve, propagate and perpetuate this particular style of Raga Music all over the country. Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, the inheritor of Patiala-Kasur style of Thumri singing and also Poorab Ang Thumri, through the lineage of Girija Shankar Chakraborty, felt this necessity, came forward and started Thumri Festival - 'RAS BHAV RANG, THUMRI KE SANG' in 2019 from Shrutinandan platform. The purpose of this festival is to spread the genre widely among all music loving people as well as to introduce new generation Thumri singers. In addition to this festival a special research oriented Thumri class for developing Poorab and Patiala style of singing also has been started for last two years under the guidance of Panditjee.

We had already organised this festival for two times in the year of 2019 and 2020 at Rabindra Sadan Auditorium. But this year due to pandemic situation we are going to present our 3rd Thumri Festival through LIVE ON-LINE on 14th March 2021, Sunday at 6:30pm IST. We are really extremely happy to announce that Sreemati Suranjana Bose, Sri Shantanu Bhattacharyya, Sreemati Sanjukta Biswas and Kumari Atri Kotal will be performing in this evening of colourful musical soiree. Please, collect your VIEWER PASS as soon as possible, join the festival and feel the emotion of this unique style.

Looking forward for your encouragement and participation,

Members of Shrutinandan