Sham Chaurasia gharana

Sham Chaurasia gharana is a gharana (house of musical heritage) in Hindustani classical music known for the singing of vocal duets, most notably represented in modern times by the brothers Nazakat and Salamat Ali Khan. The gharana is centered at a village of the same name in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab (India); variant spellings include Shamchurasi etc.

The gharana is believed to have been founded in the 16th century by Mian Chand Khan and Mian Suraj Khan who were contemporaries of Mian Tansen at the court of Mughal emperor Akbar. Successive generations of musicians in the gharana specialised in the dhrupad form of singing and evolved a tradition of duet vocal jugalbandi performances. Meer Baksh and Khairdeen,Karam Elahi Khan,Vilayat Ali and Hadayat Khan, Nazakat Ali and Salamat Ali are noted practitioners of jugalbandi from this gharana.

Mian Karim Bukhsh Majzoob,Ustad Karam ElahiUstad Nazim Hussain Khan SahibUstad Ahmed Ali Khan, Ustad Niaz Hussain Shami, and Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan were some of the illustrious members of the Sham Chaurasi gharana.

The gharana of Sham Chaurasia (sham is taken from the name of the Sufi saint, Sant Shami Shah and (chaurasi =84) was named after a cluster of 84 villages which constituted a land revenue unit in the time of Ranjit Singh. According to one legend, the founders were given a parcel of land here as a grant to them by Mughal Emperor Akbar.

In an alternative version of the origin, the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah Rangila was said to have been so impressed by the gharana that he gave all income from the 84 local villages, known as 'Chaurasi', to the Sufi saint Sant Shami Shah. This is where the name Sham Chaurasi comes from.

Around the turn of the century, the gharana was represented by Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan, who was noted for his dhrupad singing. His sons are Salamat Ali Khan,Nazakat Ali Khan, Tasadaq Ali Khan,Akhter Ali Khan and Zaker Ali Khan, later Salamat and Nazakat were to become particularly well known for their duet singing in Pakistan and India.

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Wikipedia