Rezwana Choudhury Bannya is not just a well trained professional singer, she is an ascetic practitioner of Rabindra Sangeet. The compassion in her voice touches the essential solitude of the listener. She thinks learning Rabindra Sangeet is like learning to incorporate beauty and goodness into ones inner being. Rabindra Sangeet is the foundation of what she believes in life as Rabindranath’s songs are the reflection of his entire life his philosophy and his aesthetics.
As a student at Visva Bharati she was fortunate enough to study music under the close guidance of such legendary gurus as Shailajaranjan Majumder, Santidev Ghosh, Kanika Bandopaddhaya, Neelima Sen, Manju Bandopadhyay, Ashesh Bandopaddhay, Sudesh Bandopaddhay and Gora Sarbadhikary . It was Kanika who inspired Bannya to start of her own school in 1992 to teach Rabindra Sangeet and spread the specific style of Tagore Music. On Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary Shurer Dhara launched “Shrutigitabitan”, a complete musical version of “Gitabitan”, performed by almost 400 Bangladeshi born singers, alive and deceased, was launched on 29th December 2011 by Nobel Laureate “Amarta Sen” and Prime Minister “Sheikh Hasina”.
Born in Rongpur, Bannya had a Bengali middle class upbringing. She developed an awareness of music and became attracted to it from a very early age. Her father, Mazher Khan, was a high ranking civil servant and mother, Esmat Khan, a teacher - they both loved Rabindranath. Naturally, the cultural environment in the family was very much influenced by their love of everything that was Tagore (Rabindric). They gave her the nickname of Labannya, the protagonist of Tagore’s famous novel, Shesher Kabita - hence, the affectionate diminutive, Bannya. She probably would not have taken up music as a vocation without her father’s constant encouragement and enthusiastic support at every step. But her talent as a potential singer was first truly spotted by Abdul Ali, her uncle, from whom Bannya had her first lesson in Rabindra-Sangeet.
When child Bannya’s talent became evident, the family enrolled her into Chhayanat, one of the few pioneering music schools of the then East Pakistan. There, she was taught by Sanjida Khatun and Atiqul Islam, two most renowned artisites of Rabindra-Sangeet in the country. Bannya quite happily sang her way through school and college without ever contemplating to become a professional singer. In 1975, Bangladesh had been independent for a few years, and a closer relationship had developed once again between the two halves of Bengal. Bannya won a scholarship to go to Santiniketan to study music, an event that changed the entire course of her life. She did not know then why Tagore himself had placed music so high in the curriculum of Santiniketan. She was overwhelmed by the music in the atmosphere of the ashram. In no time she entered the spirit of the place. Or was it the other way round? At Santiniketan, Bannya was fortunate enough to study music under such legendary gurus as Shailajaranjan Majumdar, Santidev Ghose, Kanika Bandopaddhay, Neelima Sen, Ashesh Bandopaddhaye, Sudesh Bandopaddhaye, Gora Sarbadhikary and Manju Bandopddhay. It was Kanika Bandopaddhaye (Mohor-di) who took the young apprentice under her loving care, nurtured her talents and put her through the paces of the most rigorous disciplines. In 1981, Bannya took her Master’s degree in Fine Arts and returned home to Dhaka.
Rabindra Sangeet, having suffered during the few years before independence, had already made a comeback and taken a central place in the cultural life of Bangladesh. Bannya had no difficulty joining in: she became a music teacher at Chhayanat and Sangeet Bhaban and soon joined the Government College of Music in Dhaka. She started to appear in concerts and on TV and Radio programmes. In 1985, she recorded her first audio cassette. Soon the others followed. With the easy availability of cassettes in the rural commercial centres, her voice began to carry Tagore’s music to the remote parts of the country. Thus, the appeal of Rabindra-Sangeet, which was confined largely within the culture-conscious urban educated class, was taken once again back to the country folks. The arts media wrote rave reviews about her - she was lauded as having brought ‘a breath of fresh air’ to Rabindra-Sangeet in Bangladesh. Awards and other formal recognition began to come her way, and Bannya, still in her early twenties, set out on a fantastic voyage to meet her destiny as an artiste.
Bannya’s first performance outside the subcontinent was in 1986 when she joined the Bangladesh troupe to take part in Tagore’s 125th Anniversary celebrations in London. During the same trip, she also performed at UNESCO and Musee Guimet in Paris and gave a few private solo performances in Britain and the Netherlands. She was already popular with the expatriate Bengali communities in Europe: seeing her perform live on stage, her new audience wanted more. Since then Bannya has been regularly invited to perform in many countries of Europe, North America, the Middle and Far East and Australia by various cultural groups, both private and public. Bannya found new admirers of Rabindra-Sangeet far away from its natural habitat: the Bengalis living abroad discovered a new voice that revived memories of home. In 1991, Bannya gave up teaching and went back to Santiniketan and her mentor, Kanika Bandopadhaye. She had come full circle. It was time to break new grounds, delve deeper into Rabindranath and his music. She spent a whole year taking specialist courses in instrumental music, particularly the use of Esraj in Rabindra-Sangeet under the guidance of Nirmal Nandi and Sunil Kabiraj. Returning to Santiniketan made a profound impact on her. The serenity of the ashram renewed her spirits, added a new dimension to her music. She became more aware of herself as a person. This was also the period when Bannya came even closer to her mentor, Mohor-di (Kanika Bandopaddhaye), not only as her disciple but also as a constant companion and confidante. Mohor-di took Bannya along on concert tours in India and directed the recording of her first cassettes in Calcutta. A significant achievement for Bannya was to be chosen to sing in MOHOR, a film on the life and work of Kanika Bandopaddhaye, made by the renowned cineaste, Gautam Ghosh. In this film, Mohor-di had commented she would pass on the legacy to her most accomplished students. It is evident Bannya is among the chosen few.
Bannya returned to Dhaka in 1992 but this time with the confidence and maturity of an accomplished artiste. Inspired and encouraged by Mohordi she opened Shurer Dhara - a school for teaching Rabindra-Sangeet in Dhaka. The school was established at Mohordi’s instructions to spread the specific style (gharana) of Tagore’s music practised by Shailajaranjan Majumdar, followed by his disciple, Kanika Bandopadhaye and now to be further cascaded through her disciples like Bannya. Bannya lives in Dhaka with her husband and her children are settled in USA. She often travels abroad to give concerts and participates in seminars, cultural events and workshops at home and abroad in order to promote the universal appeal of Tagore’s philosophy and music. Bannya is devoted to the pursuit of excellence in her metier and still follows arduous training routines herself. She has gained the respect and the recognition of both the establishment and the public and has beyond any doubt developed her own inimitable style within the disciplines of her guru parampara gharana.
To spread her musical journey throughout the world she has been working as a guest professor in Music (Hindustani Tagore Music) through Erasmus+ Mobility Program. As a part of this mobility program last year she gave a lecture demonstration in Department of Music, Iceland University of Arts. She is one of the external Ph. D. examiners of Rabindra Bharati University, India. Furthermore she is also the member of different committees in Rajshahi, Chittagong and Jagannath University, Bangladesh. Rezwana Choudhury Bannya is now a professor and Chairperson of Department of Dance , Dhaka University. Recipients of many awards over the past years both in Bangladesh and India, Bannya receieved Rabindra Puroskar by Bangla Academy in 2014, The Independence Day Award 2016, Firoza Begum Golden Award 2017, Bangabhusan Award from the Govt. of West Bengal 2017.
