Singer Riddhi Bandyopadhyay carries Bengal’s musical heritage overseas
On March 28, singer Riddhi Bandyopadhyay will current a solo efficiency at The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Tradition, Golpark. Quickly after, she’s going to head to the UK after which to the USA for the North American Bengali Convention (NABC) 2026. Identified for her signature bouquet of ‘pancha kobir gaan’, songs of Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Dwijendralal Ray, Rajanikanta Sen and Atul Prasad Sen, she has spent over 20 years taking this repertoire throughout audiences worldwide.
Her journey with ‘pancha kobir gaan’ started in 2013 along with her first present in Kolkata. Rabindra Sangeet and Nazrul Geeti have all the time dominated and due to this fact, she sought to revive the comparatively uncared for works of Dwijendralal Ray, Rajanikanta Sen and Atul Prasad Sen.
“The branding of ‘pancha kobir gaan’ is mine. I started it in Kolkata in 2013,” she stated. Whereas many artistes now current related programmes, she refrains from judgment, as an alternative welcoming the broader attain of those songs and their preservation in Bengali cultural reminiscence. Alongside this, her renditions of ‘Bangla Puratani Gaan’ and ‘Bangla Natoker Gaan’ stay equally common.
In 2025, she was honoured by the British Parliament as a pioneer artiste and researcher of ‘pancha kobir gaan’. Born into an educational household in Konnagar, Hooghly, she excelled in each research and music, topping the state in Class 12 and later turning into a historical past professor at a authorities school. Nevertheless, she left the job inside a yr to pursue music, a call she now regrets.
“I counsel my college students not to surrender their jobs. In our nation, it’s tough to maintain a livelihood solely via artwork, particularly whereas supporting a household,” she stated and added that many senior artistes proceed to battle with out business backing.
Aside from performing, Bandyopadhyay runs an academy, emphasising depth over pattern. “Music calls for dedication and understanding of its historical past. Studying from ‘YouTube’ can not change steerage from a guru,” she stated.
She final lent her voice for playback within the Bengali movie ‘Datta’ in 2023, starring Rituparna Sengupta. Reflecting on the present playback scene, she famous a shift away from genre-specialist singers in direction of producer-driven selections and composer monopolies. “Nonetheless, my listeners are my energy… They know what I deliver to them,” she stated.
