Purnash Durgaprasad

Purnash Durgaprasad was born and raised in Guyana, where, he started singing at the age of 9. Though initially, he had to be forced by his relatives to sing, as he enjoyed playing the dholak more. He was forced into singing a bhajan at the temple, which led to him being encouraged to sing more. He said that the environment in the temple was very encouraging as nobody was judging him, and he had no pressure to perform. He later participated in a Kala Utsav where he won the first prize as a 9-year-old. That’s when he realized his love for singing. He came to America at age 10.

He was excited to live there as he childishly thought America was in the sky, and he was excited to see snow. The culture change took him some time to adjust. Growing up, his main influence was Anup Jalota Anuj Jalota is a very popular singer, and he sings >> Read More... , so he learned his bhajans with great interest. He also got a harmonium and learned by ear, which helped him accompany his singing better. After meeting his first inspiration to music, the late Shri Prakash Gossai, he met his music Guru Ajay Jha, who trained him in Indian classical music at 15 years of age. Purnash was very impressed by Jha’s style as it was different from what he was used to.

Purnash was the first West Indian individual selected to participate in SaReGaMaPa on Zee TV. During the competition, Purnash met Suresh Wadkar Suresh Ishwar Wadkar is a well-known playback sing >> Read More... , who gave him the privilege of joining his music academy in India. Purnash lived in India for a year, where he studied Indian Classical music in depth and went through strict training. He lived the ‘music life’ because he was thinking about music the whole day, which helped him learn new techniques. These new techniques are the reason he feels like he has his own signature style that is different from other musicians.

He met Lata Mangeshkar Lata Mangeshkar, the veteran playback singer, had >> Read More... , which had left him starstruck, the 10-second interaction felt like 10 minutes to him. In 2012, Purnash had the honor of singing at the opening of Sonu Nigam’s concert. He now teaches vocals at Suresh Wadkar’s Ajivasan Academy in New Jersey and is studying western music theory at Queensborough Community College. He dreams of one day singing with the legendary AR Rahman