MUMBAI: Dhrupad maestro Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar passed away on 8 May after a brief illness in Mumbai.
Aged 80, the maestro was a recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi award and Madhya Pradesh government’s prestigious Tansen Samman. He was also bestowed with the Padma Shri in 2012, but he reportedly turned it down, saying the government did not care about his seniority as he was chosen for it after much younger Dhrupad singers were conferred the honour.
His disciples included musicians like Ritwik Sanyal, Pandit Pushparaj Koshti, Pandit Nirmalya Dey, Gundecha brothers, Pandit Uday Bhavalkar, his nephew Baha’uddin Mohiuddin Dagar and Marianne Svasek.
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His music represented the 19th generation of the Dagarbani musical tradition and he dedicated his life to propagating the art form. He was known for his remarkable command over microtones (Swar-bheda), gamak and other alankarans and lakshans. By 1980, he had settled in Austria and France but returned to Bhopal during the making of the background score of the film on Madhya Pradesh by his disciple Mani Kaul.
The chief minister Arjun Singh and secretary Ashok Vajpayee back then decided to start a Dhrupad Gurukul in Bhopal and Dagar agreed to settle in India to take charge of the Gurukul. He taught there for 25 years and was also a distinguished faculty at Dhrupad Sansar, IIT Bombay for five years. He later settled in Panvel and was teaching at the Gurukul started by his brother ZM Dagar.
