'Suramani' Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi (10 August 1932 – 25 August 2013) was an Odissi music Guru, vocalist, composer and music director. He is most known for his renditions of Jayadeva's Gita Govinda and his vocal support for his wife, the Odissi danseuse Sanjukta Panigrahi. Raghunath belonged to a family associated with Odissi music for centuries, members of which were 19th-century Odissi poet-composer Sadhaka Kabi Gourahari Parichha and Gayaka Siromani Apanna Panigrahi who was the royal musician (raja-sangitagya) of Paralakhemundi. He started his musical training from his father Pt Neelamani Panigrahi, who had been collecting traditional Odissi melodies of the Gita Govinda from the Jagannatha Temple of Puri. Later, Raghunath continued learning Odissi music under Pt Narasingha Nandasarma and Pt Biswanatha Das. He was widely known as 'Gitagobinda Panigrahi'. He also sang in popular Odia, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu movies. Raghunath left a promising career in film music in Chennai to provide vocal support to his wife, Sanjukta Panigrahi, a legendary Odissi performer and composer. He made a lifetime contribution of promoting, propagating and popularizing the life and works of Jayadeva and the cult of Lord Jagannatha. Sanjukta-Raghunath played for many years from the 1960s until the 1990s. After the death of Sanjukta in 1997, he was associated with the Nrityagram and gave music for many of their productions. He formed the 'Sanjukta Panigrahi Memorial Trust', in 1999, to promote the cause of Odishi dance. Since 2001, every year on her birth anniversary, the trust has been giving away scholarships to budding dancers, and awards excellence in the field of Orissi dance.

Personal life

Raghunath Panigrahi was born on 10 August 1932 in Gunupur, Rayagada, Odisha. He started his musical training first under his father, Sri Nilamani Panigrahi, who later put him under the tutelage of Odissi music exponent Pt Narasingha Nandasarma of Puri. He met his future wife dancer Padma Shri Sanjukta Panigrahi at Kalakshetra dance school, subsequently they married in 1960 and had two sons. He died on 25 August 2013 in Bhubaneswar at the age of 82.

Filmography

Awards