Music is the greatest source of my power, devotion and liberation: Pt. Amaresh Roy Chowdhury

Eminent Bangladeshi classical vocalist Pandit Amaresh Roy Chowdhury was born in a zamindar family of Faridpur in 1928. Chowdhury started learning classical music at the age of eight from Pt. Sudhir Lal Chakrabarty, Pt. Harihar Shukla and Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakrabarty, Nikhil Chandra Sen (Nazrul Sangeet) and Anath Nath Basu (Thumri) The maestro has a legendary music career of eight decades and was awarded Ekushey Padak yesterday by the Government of Bangladesh, for his lifelong contribution to classical music.
“I am overwhelmed to receive the highest civilian award. I am extremely grateful to our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as she has kindly bestowed me with such an honour. I have been trying to nurture, practice, perform and diffuse classical music throughout my entire life. I deeply feel music as the greatest source of my power, devotion and liberation,” said a very humble Pandit over phone.  

“I am blessed with the love and appreciation of legendary music maestros including Dagar Brothers, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar. The highest honour that I received yesterday is not only mine; all the people who love and work for promoting classical music, are recipients of this award,” said the Pandit.

“I think the practice of classical music has increased qualitatively and quantitatively. Younger artistes are showing much interest in the genre. Everyone must know one thing: if you learn classical music, you can master all types of music. I am extremely happy that the world's largest classical music festival by Bengal Foundation is held in Dhaka; at the same time, I feel that alongside many world-renowned classical music maestros, we, Bangladeshi vocalists, could also represent our country. I am confident to perform on the same stage, but we haven't been approached yet,” said Amaresh Roy Chowdhury.

For his contribution to classical music, the maestro has also received other awards including Sanket Sangskritik Goshthi Award (1981), Ustad Gul Mohammad Memorial Award by Sangeet Academy (1982), Gunijan Sammanona by Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (1997), National Leader Shaheed AHM Kamaruzzaman Sammanona Smarok (2010) and Rabindra Padak by Jatiya Rabindra Sangeet Sammilan Parishad (2014).