Kamala Shankar

Who is Kamala Shankar?

Kamala Shankar was born in 1966 in the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu. She is a Hindustani classical guitar player. Shankar is the first woman to have been awarded a doctorate in guitar.

Kamala was trained in music by her mother from the age of six, and went on to study with khyal singer Channulal Mishra and sitar maestro Bimalendu Mukherjee. She received a doctorate of music from vichitra-beenkar Gopal Shankar Mishra at Banaras Hindu University, and also holds bachelor's degrees in both vocal music and zoology. Dr Kamala Shankar has been awarded the India's National Award in Music titled " Rashtriya Kumar Gandharva Samman" .

The guitar has only recently begun to be adopted to Indian classical music, and many players modify the instrument with their own developments to better suit the idiom. In this, Shankar is no exception. Her model, the Shankar guitar, is made from a single block of wood, with thicker walls and no sound hole. It has four melody strings, four chikari and 12 taraf. The guitar is named after Shankar Bhagwan. Shankar calls it a "modified version of the Hawaiian guitar".