Parveen Sultana was born on July 10, 1950 at Daccapatty in Nowgong, Assam. She is an Assamese Hindustani classical singer of the Patiala Gharana and is known as the "Queen of Classical Vocal".
She learnt Hindustani classical music from her father, Ikramul Mazid and grandfather Mohammed Najeef Khan. She travelled to Kolkata to learn Hindustani classical music from Pandit Chinmoy Lahiri.
Finally, in 1973 she became a disciple of Ustad Dilshaad Khan of the Patiala Gharana, who helped her to master the ragas and improve her voice culture so that it could expand up to three and a half octaves. She can handle simple as well as complex ragas and move from a slow alaap to the faster Taans and Bol Taans. She married Ustad Dilshaad Khan on August 26, 1975. The couple has a daughter.
She gave her first stage performance in Kolkata when she was 12 years old. She started recording music from 1965 and worked with a number of music labels like HMV, Polydor, Music India, Bharat Records, Amigo, Magnasound, Sonodisc and Auvidis. Parveen Sultana has also sung for a number of Bollywood films like “Do Boond Paani” (1971), “Pakeezah” (1972), “Kudrat” (1981) and “Gadar” (2001).
On April 12, 2003, she started an institute called “Gun Ranga Sangeet Sabha” in Pune in memory of her late father and guru. She has won a number of awards, including the title “Cleopatra of Music” in 1972, Padmashree award in 1976, the “Sangeet Samrag” award from the Assam government in 1994 and the Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1999.
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