Sharada Krishnamurthy, popularly known as Kavita Krishnamurthy or Kavita Subramaniam, is an Indian playback and classical singer. She has recorded songs in various Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Odia, Marathi, English, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Nepali, Assamese, Konkani, Punjabi and other languages. She is the recipient of four Filmfare Best Female Playback Singer Awards (winning consecutively during 1995–1997), and the Padmashri which she received in 2005. She was awarded a Doctorate (Honoris Causa) for her contributions to Indian music by Bangalore-based Jain University in 2015. In 1999, she married noted violinist L. Subramaniam and resides in Bengaluru.
Early life
Born as Sharada into a Tamil Iyer family in New Delhi to T. S. Krishnamurthy, an employee of the Education Ministry. She began her musical training at the insistence of her aunt, Protima Bhattacharya who enrolled her to train under Surama Basu, where she was taught Rabindra Sangeet. She began her formal training in Hindustani classical music under the guidance of Balram Puri, a classical singer. At the age of eight, Kavita won a gold medal at a music competition. She won several medals participating in the Inter-Ministry Classical Competition in New Delhi in the mid-1960s.
Career
Kavita Krishnamurthy at the Bengali poetry event Panchkanya at Nehru Centre in Mumbai, 2008.
During her college days at St. Xavier College, Mumbai, she got an opportunity to record a song in the Bengali film Shriman Prithviraj in 1971 with Lata Mangeshkar as co-singer under the auspices of the music composer and singer Hemant Kumar. Although the young Sharada aspired to work in Indian Foreign Services, she moved to Bombay when she was 14 to try her luck as a playback singer in the Hindi film industry.
She is an alumnus of St. Xavier’s College, Bombay from where she did her BA Honors Economics. She was very active in St. Xavier’s music group. During the annual college festival (Malhar), she met Ranu Mukherjee, the daughter of Hemant Kumar. Ranu took the initiative of reintroducing Kavita to her father, who began using her as a singer during his live performances. At one such performance, playback singer Manna Dey spotted her and employed her to sing advertisement jingles. Through her aunt’s contacts, she met Jaya Chakravarthy, the mother of actress Hema Malini, who later introduced Kavita to the music director Laxmikant (one of the composer duo Laxmikant–Pyarelal) in late 1976. A recent interview covers a pretty good summary of her musical journey.
Pop and devotional singing
Due to her participation in fusion and pop music, Kavita has lent her voice to several pop and devotional albums. The most prominent ones being:
Bhalobasi
Shiv Baba ko Yaad Kar
Dujone Dekha Holo
Together Tagore
Premer Neshay
Mohe Raam Dhun Laagi
Bhajan Stuti
Aadi Ganesh
Venkatesha Suprabhatam
Shiva Shlokas
Koi Akela Kahan
Meera Ka Ram
Mahalakshmi Stotram
Pop Time
Sai Ka Vardaan
Shagufthagi
Dil Ki Awaaz
Hasratein
Athens
Asmita
Mahiya
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