Sumati Mutatkar Biography 
Sumati Mutatkar was an Indian classical music vocalist from Agra Kharana (Hindustani music). She has been a Professor of Department of Music in University of Delhi. She received Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in the year 1979 for her contributions to Indian classical music. She has also received Padma Shri in 1999 from Government of India and Kalidas Samman from Government of Madhya Pradesh for the year 2001-2002. She was a musicologist also.
She was born in Balaghat of Madhya Pradesh in the year 1916, September 10. She was the eldest child of Gajanan Amberdekar, a judge, and her mother’s name was Sundari Subedar. She got training in Hindustani classical music from many teachers. Among them the leading names are Pandit S.N.Ratanjankar, Pandit Rajabhaiya Poochwale of Gwalior gharana, Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan of Agra gharana, Pandit Anant Manohar Joshi and Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan) of the Rampur gharana and finally from S. N. Ratanjankar while studying at Bhatkhande Music Institute at Lucknow.
In 1953, she joined All India Radio as director of music. Then she became Deputy Chief Producer of Music in AIR. She joined as teacher of Music and Fine Arts, Delhi University in the year 1968 and she stayed there till she got retired in the year 1981. She supervised numerous research programs in the field of music while she was working in Delhi University. She has also published a few books on music during this time. After her retirement, she became well known as embodiment of music knowledge. Her depth of knowledge often attracted research students and musicians, who visited her in search of knowledge or compositions. She loved English language as well as Sanskrit and its literature. She died on February 28, 2007, at a private hospital in Kolkata, after a brief illness aged 91.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 07, 2014
