Rajabhau Kogje

Rajabhau Kogje (1926–1993) is an Hindustani classical vocalist. Known for contributions to Hindustani classical music, performance, teaching, and repertoire building.

Rajabhau started getting basic music lessons under his father at very early age. At the age of 6, Rajabhau was sent to Pt. Govindrao Multapikar of Jabalpur to take lessons in classical music. Pt. Multapikar was a disciple of Pt. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. He became famous as ‘child prodigy’ due to his miraculous performances at the age of 8-10.From 1935 to 1938 Rajabhau always stood first in music competitions organized by Allahabad University. He stood first competing in Vocal music, Violin, Israj and Harmonium also. Along with music, he had regular academic training in Jabalpur, Pune & Sagar University.

In 1939, Pt. Multapikar guided Rajabhau to Pt. Vinayakrao Patwardhan residing at Pune for further training. He gave him rigorous and disciplined training in classical music of Gwalior Gharana, especially Paluskar tradition till 1947. During this period Rajabhau passed both Sangeet Alankar and Sangeet Pravin examinations. (Mirashibuwa & Shankar Rao Vyas were the examiners!) After his success in Sangeet Pravin, his first concert in Pune was held by Sardar Abasaheb Mujumdar.

Rajabhau, with his Guru's permission went to Banaras to learn delicacy and emotion of Banarasi thumari from the legendary singer Rasoolanbai. Rasoolanbai trained Rajabhau in various forms of semi classical music such as thumari, dadara, kajari, chaiti, sawan etc. He owed his command over Layabant and Taalbant to the legendary Pt. Govindrao Barhanpurkar of Jabalpur, from whom Rajabhau received tutelage in Pakhawaj and Tabla playing.