Kavita Subramaniam née Kavita Krishnamurthy (born Sharada Krishnamurthy) is a notable Indian film playback singer. Although she is best known as a Bollywood playback singer, she has a much wider repertoire. She has done playback singing for every other Bollywood movie and sold many records. Mrs. Kavita is considered as one of India's most technically gifted singer--her range of songs includes film music, pop, ghazals, bhajans, traditional Indian Classical music, qawwalis, Rabindra Sangeets and fusion work. She has sung in over 14 languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, English, Oriya, Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Jharkhandi, Rajasthani and Konkani. Due to her image as a prominent playback singer, she has lent her timeless voice for several Nepali and Bangladeshi films. In her career, she has had the opportunity to work with different music composers of different times.

Personal Life

Kavita Krishnamurthy was born in New Delhi. Her father, Mr. T.S. Krishnamurthy was an official employed with the Education Ministry. She began her music training with her aunt, Mrs. Bhattacharya, who taught her Rabindra Sangeet. As she completed her training, she began her formal training in Hindustani classical music under the aegis of Sri. Balram Puri, a noted classical singer. At the young age of eight, Kavita won a gold medal at a music competition. Subsequently, she kept winning many such gold medals as she kept participating in the Inter-Ministry Classical Competition in New Delhi in the mid 1960s.

Kavita Krishnamurthy married violin maestro Dr. L. Subramaniam in Bangalore on November 11 1999. They have no children. Dr. Subramaniam has three children from his previous marriage but Kavita treats them as if they are her own children. Their daughter Seetha is a law graduate and is currently working on an English album. Narayanan, the middle one, is a qualified doctor and has an ear for music. The youngest one is Ambi Subramaniam, who is a featured soloist in the Bangalore-based band "Astral Symphony" and has recorded and has given several concerts with his proud parents. She now resides in Bangalore because her husband likes the city a lot and decided to make it his base. She is open to working outside Bangalore but the only condition that she needs to be with her family.

Kavita and her husband are now planning a music institute in Bangalore. The Institute would be named after her late father-in-law Lakshminarayana, who was also her husband's guru. The idea is to make it a global institute. The institute would teach both Indian and Western music. She wants dedicated students to learn from the works of Mozart so that they could collaborate with Western musicians who come to India for tours. The seeds have been sown with violin classes. She says that she is not going to be involved in too many classes. Her role in the institute would be to supervise the teaching process and conduct workshops on how to interpret a song. Her secret desire is to create the best music library that India has ever had, which includes, a vast variety of world music. Dr. Subramaniam has already collected a lot of material to which they want teachers, dedicated students and enthusiasts to have access.

Professional Career

At the tender age of nine, she got an opportunity to record a Tagore song in Bengali with the legendary Lata Mangeshkar under the auspices of the music composer and singer Hemant Kumar. Although the young Sharada was aspiring to be working with Indian Foreign Services, Kavita moved to Bombay when she was just 14 to try her luck as a playback singer in the Hindi film industry. She is an alumnus of St. Xaviers' College, Bombay from where she acquired her Ph.D. in Economics. She was also very active in the St. Xaviers' Music Group during her college days. During the annual college festival (Malhar), she accidentally bumped into Ms. Ranu Mukherjee, the daughter of Hemant Kumar. Ranu took the initiative of reintroducing the Kavita to her father. As expected, he was highly impressed by her grounding in music, so he began using her talent as a singer during his live performances. In one such performance, playback singer Manna Dey spotted her talent and employed her to sing advertisement jingles. Through her aunt's strong contacts, she met Mrs. Jaya Chakravarthy, the mother of actress Hema Malini, who later took the initiative of introducing Kavita to the music director Laxmikant (one half of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal fame) in late 1976.

Laxmikant gave her an option to work as a dubbing artiste or a career in playback singing later. Kavita chose the former and impressed Laxmikant with her strong grounding in Indian classical music and her deep voice along with her soulful timbre. Initially, she used to record songs and cut demos of songs intended for singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. In her struggle phase, she received the patronage of music composers Laxmikant--Pyarelal, who backed her so strongly that she was labelled as a "LP-campwalli" which gave many music directors an excuse to avoid working with her.

In 1980, she first sang the song, "Kaahe Ko Byaahi" in the film Maang Bharo Sajna, which featured her singing talent in her own voice. Unfortunately, the song was dropped from the final cut of the film. In 1985, her career took off with her first major hit, "Tumse Milkar Na Jaane Kyon" from the Hindi film Pyaar Jhukta Nahin. Post the success of the song, it opened up various opportunities beyond the Laxmikant-Pyarelal camp. However, "Hawa Hawaii" and "Karte Hain Hum Pyaar Mr. India Se", two extremely popular songs from the equally popular movie Mr. India (1987), proved to be a turning point in her career. (The songs were composed by music composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal, the latter being a duet with Kishore Kumar and lip-synced on screen by actress Sridevi). Her collaboration with Laxmikant-Pyarelal produced several hits.

The 1990s thrust Kavita to being known as the undisputed leading female playback singer. In 1994, Kavita had the rare honour to be the only female singer after Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle to sing for the institution himself R.D. Burman. Her performance as a singer in the film 1942: A Love Story, composed by R.D. Burman won her a lot of popular acclaim. She went onto work with the best music directors of Hindi films of the 1990s, such as Ismail Darbar, Nadeem-Shravan, A.R. Rahman, Jatin-Lalit, Anu Malik etc. During her stint as a playback singer, she sang duets with the leading male singers of her times like Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Udit Narayan, Mohd. Aziz and Shabbir Kumar.

Post her marriage to violin maestro Dr. L. Subramaniam in Bangalore on November 11 1999, Kavita got extremely selective and cut down on her film singing. She started exploring her talent and expanded her artistic range to areas which were never explored. She was the main featured soloist in the "Global Fusion" album released by Warner Bros., featuring musicians from all the five continents. As she actively started exploring her talent in fusion music, Kavita's exemplary voice took her all around the world including to the US, UK, Europe, Africa, Australia, The Far East, The Middle East and South America. She performed in some of the most prestigious concert halls in the world including the Royal Albert Hall in London, The Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C., Madison Square Gardens, The Lincoln Centre in New York, the Zhongshan Music Hall in Beijing, The Esplanade in Singapore, The Putra Jaya World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Gewandhaus Leipzigm among others.

Although primarily a playback singer, Kavita has explored her talent and sung with orchestras as a soloist, she collaborated with Western artists from Jazz, Pop and Classical fields. She has lent her voice for ghazals and devotional music albums. Both as a fusion music singer and as a playback singer, Kavita has performed in every nook and corner of India.

Due to her participation in fusion and pop music, Kavita has lent her voice for several pop and devotional albums. The most prominent ones being:

* Koi Akela Kahan

* Meera Ka Ram

* Mahalakshmi Stotram

* Pop Time

* Sai Ka Vardaan

* Shagufthagi

* Dil Ki Awaaz

* Athens

* Asmita

* Mahiya

Awards

Kavita Krishnamurty has received several awards and honours. She was the recipient of three consecutive Filmfare awards from 1995-1997.

Filmfare Best Female Playback Award

* Pyaar Hua Chupke Se--1942: A Love Story (1995)
* Mera Piya Ghar Aaya--Yaarana (1996)
* Aaj Main Upar--Khamoshi: The Musical (1997)
* Dola Re Dola--Devdas (2002)

Star Screen Awards

* Aaj Main Upar from Khamoshi: The Musical (1997)

Zee Cine Awards

* Zee Cine Award for Best Female Playback Singer for Nimbooda from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (2000)

* Zee Cine Award for Best Female Playback Singer for Dola Re Dola in Devdas (shared with Shreya Ghoshal) (2003)

International Indian Film Academy

* IIFA Best Female Playback Singer for Dola Re Dola in Devdas (shared with Shreya Ghoshal) (2003)

Other Awards

* Yesudas Award (2008) by Swaralaya, for exceptional contribution to Indian music.

* Padmashri (2005), for outstanding contribution to Indian music.

* Kishore Kumar Journalists'/Critics' Award in Calcutta (2002

* Bollywood Award, held in New York (2002)

* Bollywood Award, held in New York (2000)