Bhubaneswar: A host of renowned singers have won the prestigious Prafulla Kar Samman over the years, including Bollywood playback singers Kavita Krishnamurthy and Anuradha Paudwal.
Kavita was conferred with the ‘10th Prafulla Kar Samman’ in 2018, marking the legendary Odia musician’s 79th birth anniversary. Her association with Kar goes back to the 70s when she lent her voice to several Odia bhajans.
Instituted by the Prafulla Kar Foundation, the award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, citation and shawl.
Besides Kavita and Anuradha, who won the award in 2016, other recipients are Akshaya Mohanty, Shantanu Mohapatra, Raghunath Panigrahi, Pranab Patnaik, Chitta Jena, Vani Jayaram, Kumkum Mohanty and Anup Jalota.
‘Prabhukrupa’, a devotional music album directed by Kar in the voice of Anuradha under T-Series, recorded sales of over 10 lakh cassettes. His composition ‘Collection of Geet Govindam’, rendered by Vani Jayaram, was also a huge hit.
Well-known singers like Usha Mangeshkar, Kavita, Suresh Wadkar, Md. Aziz, Kishore Kumar, Amit Kumar, Vani Jayaram, S Janaki, Chitra, Yesudas and S P Balsubramanyam rendered their voices to Odia music under his direction. This apart, Kar introduced more than 20 playback singers to the Odia film industry.
