Nayyara Noor

Nayyara Noor is a Pakistani singer considered one of the South Asia’s foremost exponents in the Ghazal genre.

Biography

Nayyara Noor was born in 1950 in Assam. Her family was a merchant class hailing from Amritsar who had settled in Guwahati in Assam State in the North-Eastern India. Her father was an active member of the Muslim League and in 1958, the family moved to Pakistan. As a child, Nayyara is said to have been inspired by the bhajans of Kanan Devi and Kamla as well as the ghazals and thumris of Begum Akhtar.

Although Nayyara had no formal musical background nor formal training, she was discovered by Professor Israr at the Islamia College in Lahore after hearing her sing for her friends and teachers at an annual dinner at the National College of Arts in Lahore in 1968. Soon thereafter she was asked to sing for the university’s Radio Pakistan programs.

In 1971, Nayyara made her public singing debut in Pakistani television serials and then beginning with films like Gharana and Tansen. She has since sung ghazals composed by the likes of Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz and has performed with Mehdi Hassan. She has won three gold medals in the All Pakistan Music Conference and a Nigar Award for best female singer. She has since performed at countless mehfils and mushairas having cemented a following among ghazal lovers in Pakistan and India.Her probably the most famous ghazal (a form of song in Urdu poetry) was ae jazba e dil gar mai chhon, written by Behzad Lakhnavi 1900-1974, a poet, script writer and song writer of radio Pakistan, for which she won many rewards. Behazad Lakhnavi is buried in Sakhi Hasan. This is the place which allotted by the government for the memories of Behzad Lakhnavi.
Nayyara won the Nigar Award for best singer, in the film ‘Gharana’, in 1973.Nayyara won the Nigar Award for best singer in the film ‘Dooriyaan’, in 1984.The key to Nayyara’s voice is that it is realistic and inspiring at once-an enormous accomplishment, which is seldom seen in modern Pakistani music.Hers is a voice that demands our surrender-to its energy, to its vocal sway, and, above all, to its wistful presentation.Her admirers are stunned by the influence of he voice that has been unleashed on them.