Grammy Award aims at diversity, invites Pandit Prodyut Mukherjee to join as voting member

Two years after the prestigious Grammy Awards came under fire for lack of diversity, 10 Indian musicians including Musician and Global Indian Music academy awardee Percussionists, Composer Pandit Prodyut Mukherjee, have been invited to become voting members at the Royal Academy, which hosts the award ceremony. The invited artistes will be contributing to the Academy’s activities throughout the year, in different genres and capacities.

Apart from Kolkata-based Mukherjee, a world-renowned artiste, other prominent names include Sufi singer-composer Sonam Kalra, Aditya Kalyanpur, Sherise D’Souza, Pune-born guitarist-producer Karan Pandav, classical singer Kamini Natarajan, etc.

Pandit Mukherjee, while responding to the invitation, has said, “It is an honour and a privilege to represent Indian music on the world stage. I feel extremely honoured and I am humbled being selected as a voting member at the prestigious Recording Academy. I would do my best to do justice to this honour.” His percussion style involves an eclectic mix of Indo-Occidental musical notes with Afro and Latin elements in it and he also has a number of musical albums to his credit.

The Royal Academy, formerly the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), is an American learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous for its Grammy Awards telecast worldwide. These awards recognize exceptional achievements in the world of music across the world. The Recording Academy is also a founding partner of the Grammy Museum, a non-profit organization whose stated mission is preserving and educating about music history and significance. 

A berth at the Royal Academy is a rare accomplishment for Pandit Mukherjee, who is a Kolkata-born percussionist and composer as well as a GiMA award-winning music director. After this honour, he has been a recipient of Pandit Manmohan Bhatt Memorial Award among other awards. Known as a socially-conscious artiste, Pandit Mukherjee is also known for introducing the concept of ‘Green Tabla”, which advocates the reuse of damaged Tabla for tree plantations. 

The table maestro has been performing from a young age with some of the leading luminaries of Hindustani Classical Music like Padma Bhushan Pandit Vishwamohan Bhatt, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, Ustad Nishat Khan and many more and collaborated with Odissi Exponent Dona Ganguly, Ghazal and Bhajan exponent Anup Jalota, Playback maestros Suresh Wadker, Shaan, Kishore Sodha and many others on many projects.