Raghunath Panigrahi

Date of birth - 10 August 1934

Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi (10 August 1932 – 25 August 2013) was an Indian classical singer and music director.  He was the first Oriya musician to be decorated by the government of France, in the early '70s.A noted singer of the Gita Govinda, he left a promising career in film music in Chennai, to provide vocal support in his wife, Sanjukta Panigrahi, a legendary Orissi performer and composer. He made a lifetime contribution of promoting, propagating and popularizing the life and works of Jayadeva and the cult of Lord Jagannatha.
Sanjukta-Raghunath played for many years from the 1970s until the 1990s.
After the death of Sanjukta in 1997, he was associated with the Nrityagram and gave music for many of their productions. He formed the 'Sanjukta Panigrahi Memorial Trust', in 1999, to promote the cause of Odishi dance. Since 2001, every year on her birth anniversary, the trust has been giving away scholarships to budding dancers, and awards excellence in the field of Orissi dance.