Zakir Hussain, Sonal Mansingh among 2018 Akademi Fellows

NEW DELHI: The national academy of music, dance and drama on Tuesday announced the names of tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, dance exponents

Sonal Mansingh

, Jatin Goswami, and K Kalyanasundaram Pillai as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows for 2018.


The fellowship, referred to as the 'Akademi Ratna', is a coveted honour conferred on artists.

The Akademi's General Council also selected 44 artistes from the field of music, dance, theatre across the traditional, folk, and tribal genres, puppetry and overall contribution/scholarship to the performing arts for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2018.

In the field of music, eleven artists will be awarded, while in the field of dance and theatre nine artists each have been selected.

Ten artists have been selected for traditional folk/tribal music and dance. Diwan Singh Bajeli and Puru Dadhich have been selected for the Akademi Award 2018 in the field of 'Overall Contribution/Scholarship' in performing arts.

In music, the awardees include Mani Prasad and

Madhup Mudgal

for Hindustani Vocal,

Tarun Bhattacharya

for santoor, Tejendra Narayan Majumdar for sarod, Alamelu Mani and Malladi Suribabu for Carnatic vocals, Sugam sangeet exponents Suresh Wadkar and

Shanti Hiranand

, and H. Ashangbi Devi for Nata Sankirtana.

The awards will be conferred by the President of India at a special investiture ceremony, the date of which has not been announced yet.