Artist Biography
Krishnan Nair Shantakumari Chithra Born 27 July 1963 credited as K. S. Chithra or Chithra is an Indian playback singer and Carnatic musician. She has recorded more than 25,000 songs in various Indian languages including Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tulu, Rajasthani, Urdu, Sanskrit, and Badaga as well as foreign languages such as Malay, Latin, Arabic, Sinhalese, English and French. She is also known for her extensive history of collaboration in the songs with Music Composers A.R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraja and with the playback singers SP Balasubrahmanyam and K J Yesudas over the years. She is also known mostly for her sweet and melodious voice for which she is fondly called as Melody Queen and Nightingale of South India.
Chithra is a recipient of six National Film Awards, eight Filmfare Awards South and 36 different state film awards. She has won four south Indian state film awards. She was awarded India’s third highest civilian honor Padma Bhushan in 2021 and Padma Shri in 2005 for her valuable contributions towards the Indian musical fraternity. Chithra is the first Indian woman who was honored by the House of Commons, British Parliament, United Kingdom in 1997 and is the only singer from India who was honored by the Government of China at the Qinghai International Music and Water Festival in 2009. She is conferred with the highest honour of Rotary International, For the Sake of Honour award in 2001 and has received the MTV Video Music Award – International Viewer’s Choice at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York in 2001. She received honorary doctorates from Sathyabama University in 2011 and from The International Tamil University, United States in 2018.
She was honoured with Rashtrapati Award for being the First Ladies in the field of music felicitated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of Government of India at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 20 January 2018.In 2018, she was honoured by Mr. Craig Coughlin, Speaker of the General Assembly, New Jersey, United States. In 2019, she was honoured by Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, sovereign ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah and a member of the Federal Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates, for successfully completing 40 years in Indian film industry. Her song “Kannalane/Kehna Hi Kya” from the film Bombay (1995) was included in The Guardian’s “1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear Before You Die” list.
