Zia Fariduddin Dagar


Zia Fariduddin Dagar was an Indian classical vocalist belonging to the Dhrupad tradition, the oldest existing form of north Indian classical music. He was part of the Dagar family of musicians.
He taught at the Dhrupad Kendra in Bhopal with his elder brother Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. He also taught as a visiting professor up to the time of the Babri mosque riots. After the riots, he decided to live at the gurukul of his brother Zia Mohiuddin Dagar at Palaspe near Panvel.
He was awarded the 1994 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Hindustani music-Vocal by Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Later

Early life and training

He was born in Udaipur, Rajasthan, where his father, the great Ustad Ziauddin Khansahib, was the court musician for Maharana Bhupal Singh of Udaipur. He was taught Dhrupad vocal and veena by his father. After his father’s demise, he continued learning under his elder brother, Late Ustad Z M Dagar.

Career

He has performed widely in India and abroad, and received the Tansen Samman from the Madhya Pradesh government and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. In 2005, he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the North American Dhrupad Association.
By 1980, he had virtually settled down in Austria where he taught at the conservatory of Innsbruck teaching Dhrupad in Austria and France. Once, during a visit to India, one of his disciples, the filmmaker, Mani Kaul came to him and pleaded with him to provide the background score for a film, The Cloud Door he was making on Madhya Pradesh.
During the making of the film, they spent over two months in Madhya Pradesh, a lot of time in Bhopal. In those days, Shri Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Cultural development was one of his passions. It is because of him that the magnificent Bharat Bhavan cultural center came up in Bhopal.
At that time, the Secretary to the Department of Culture in Madhya Pradesh was Ashok Vajpayee. Vajpayee offered to start a government supported school for Dhrupad in Bhopal. Zia Fariduddin agreed to move back to India and to take charge as the teacher at this school. He taught dhrupad for 25 years at this Dhrupad Kendra, under the Ustad Allauddin Khan Music Academy, Bhopal, to students like the Gundecha Brothers, Uday Bhawalkar Nirmalya Dey and Marianne Svasek.
He was a distinguished guest faculty at 'Dhrupad Sansar', IIT Bombay for a span of 5 years. Dhrupad Sansar was started under the Cell for Human Values to create an appreciation about Indian Classical Arts and Culture among staff and students of the institution.
He was staying and teaching at the Dhrupad Gurukul near Panvel, which was built by his elder brother Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and continued to perform in India and abroad until his brief illness and death on 8 May 2013.

Awards