Malini Awasthi

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Malini Awasthi is a most renowned female voice in the field of Bhojpuri folk music. A name that personifies the quintessential aspect of Hindustani musical tradition and a name that became a chronicler of hitherto unsung tunes and voices of rural Uttar Pradesh. Born into a family of doctors in Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh, she was initiated into music at a tender age of 5 years on the insistence of her foresighted mother. Neither her family nor she herself had any idea that this initiation would eventually add an important facet of folk music to the cultural landscape of the country. The transferable nature of her father’s job, mostly in the sub-urban regions of the U.P., exposed her to the real cultural ethos of the vernacular and helped her to develop a deep association with it. 

• Along with her academic training from Mount Carmel College, she was fortunate to receive her first formal tutelage in classical music from renowned Ustad Rahat Ali Khan, who was working with AIR, Gorakhpur. After coming to Lucknow, the epicenter of Awadhi culture, she got enrolled in Bhatkhande Music University and Lucknow University, earning a master's with a gold medal in Hindustani classical vocal and an M.A. in modern history simultaneously. Her rigorous music training began after her marriage. World-renowned Thumri-queen Padma-Vibhushan Vidushi Girija Devi of Banares gharana became her guru and adopted Malini as her ‘ganda-baandh’ disciple. This mode of ‘guru-shishya parampara’ learning became the turning point in her career and identity and chiseled her talent to perfection. Under the guidance of Devi, she was exposed to the ‘chaumukhi gayan’ of Benares and gained expertise in pure classical forms like khayaal and thumri, along with semi-classical forms like Dadra, Kajri, Jhoola, Chaiti, and Hori. The Indigenous shade of Benares gharana, the ‘purab-ang gaayki’, blended into her mellifluous singing and added richness to the vast repertoire of experience and training. Inclination and attachment for folk music came as an automatic realization to Malini. After a lot of self-reflection and deliberations with the likes of great scholar Pt. Vidyaniwas Mishra and others, she ventured thoroughly into the realm of folk music of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with the aim to redeem and re-establish its lost glory. Being an avid learner and a devoted artist, she admits that her training still continues. 
• Malini Awasthi is a great stage performer for live music concerts of Bhojpuri and classical singing. Since the age of 10 years, she has given more than a thousand shows, both nationally and internationally. She believes that the inherent spirit of participation in folk music can be recreated only through reaching out to the masses, and her each stage performance is a testimony to this. Equally adept in a range of singing styles and genres, she has a dedicated audience for folk songs, classical, semi-classical, and Gazals. Malini has performed in all the major festivals across the country, such as- the Thumri-Festival and Rag-rang-Festival, Uttar-Pradesh-Mahotsav in Delhi, Goa, Kolkata and Bhopal, Taj-Mahotsav, Ganga-Mahotsav, Lucknow-Festival, Buddh-Mahotsav, Ramayan-Mela, Kajri-Mela, Kabir-Utsav, etc. in Uttar Pradesh, Shruti-Mandal-Samaroh, Kumbhal-Gardh-Festival, Surajkund-Craft-Mela and Heritage-Festival-Pinjore, Badri-Kedar-Mahotsav in Uttrakhand, Naad-Utsavat Bharat Bhawan Bhopal, Gwalior-Mela, Kalidas-Samaroh at Ujjain, Folk-Festival at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, Kalidas-Mahotsav in Nagpur, Lok Rang festival in Mumbai, performance at Mahatma Gandhi Hindi University at Wardha, and Bihar Diwas at Siri-Fort. Rajgir-Festival, Vaishali-Mahotsav, Patliputra-Mahotsav, Chath-Festivals and various other concerts in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP Chattisgarh, Maharasthra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujrat, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi. Internationally, she has honor of presenting at the Festival of India in Mauritus; 2015, ICCR 40th Anniversary celebration in Fiji; 2011, Independence day celebration Houston, USA; 2004 and 2015, Pakistan; 2007, England; 1998, South Bank center, London; 2011, Holland; 2002, 2003 and 2015, Vishwa Bhojpuri sammelan, s; 2000, 2001. Malini has the rare honour of giving the playback music for the film ‘Tulsi Das produced by the Dutch Government.

Awards: Padma Shri Awardee, India's fourth highest civilian honours