Daily Times

Famous singer Dr Amjad Parvez Sunday died at the age 79. He was under treatment for kidney failure.

Dr Amjad Parvez was born in Lahore on 28 March 1945, to Sheikh Abdul Karim who was head of the Chemistry department, Islamia College, Lahore.

Parvez’s grandfather Khwaja Dil Muhammad was the principal at Islamia College, Lahore.

He was also a poet of the Pakistan Movement as his nationalistic poems were read in the annual conventions of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam mostly presided by Allama Iqbal.

Parvez completed his basic education at Central Model School, Lahore in 1960.

He then joined Government College, Lahore and University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore from where he graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1967. Dr Parvez had a passion for music since his childhood. He began his career as a child artist in 1954 at Radio Pakistan, Lahore in the children’s programme ‘Honhaar’ before appearing on ‘Khatir-e-Ehbaab’ in the sixties.

He trained in classical singing from the Ustads of Sham Chaurasia gharana such as Ustad Nazakat Ali Khan-Ustad Salamat Ali Khan duo, Ustad Ghulam Shabbir Khan-Ustad Ghulam Jaffar Khan duo and music composers Akhtar Hussain Akhian and veteran music composer Mian Sheheryaar. He was a practising singer at the Central Production Unit, Radio Pakistan, where he recorded hundreds of ghazals, geets, and other songs since the 1970s in his monthly performances.

For two decades, he performed a raag for the programme “Ahang-e-Khusrovi” every month and rendered more than 50 raags in Khayal form. Parvez performs both light, semi-classical music and classical music songs.

Parvez had also been associated with Pakistan Television Corporation since its inception in 1964. In his career, he also performed in the US, UK, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Myanmar and India. He was awarded Pride of Performance Award by President of Pakistan in 2000.