Sarod player Brij Narayan and mohiniattam dancer Mandakini Trivedi were among the 43 eminent artistes who won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award 2015. The General Council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy of music, dance and drama, announced the winners on Saturday. Recipients of the award were chosen from the fields of music, dance and theatre. They will be presented with the honour by President Pranab Mukherjee.

The Akademi recognises sustained individual work and people's contribution in their respective fields. Winners of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award 2015 get Rs 1lakh each as prize money, besides a tamrapatra and an angavastram. CV Chandrasekhar, chosen as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow (Akademi Ratna) of 2015, will receive a prize money of Rs 3 lakh. Only 40 individuals are given a fellowship at a time.

Eleven personalities won the award in the field of music. They include, among others, Krishna Bisht and Mashkoor Ali Khan for Hindustani vocals; Kartik Kumar (sitar) and Brij Narayan (sarod) for Hindustani instrumental music; RN Thyagarajan and RN Tharanathan (joint award), and Suguna Varadhachari for Carnatic vocals; and Lalgudi GJR Krishnan (violin) and Mambalam MKS Siva (nagaswaram) for Carnatic instrumental music,.

Among those who won in the field of dance were Ranganayaki Jayaraman (bharatnatyam) K Kunhiraman Nair (kathakali), G Padmaja Reddy (kuchipudi), Aloka Kanungo (odissi), Sharodi Saikia (sattriya), Mandakini Trivedi (mohiniattam), Sadashiva Pradhan (chhau), W Lokendrajit Singh (contemporary/experimental) and Rajkumar Bharathi (music for dance).

Theatre personalities who won were Nand Kishore Acharya and Shafaat Khan (playwriting), Parvez Akhtar and Mushtaq Kak (direction), and Manoj N Joshi and Himani Shivpuri (acting), among several others. While ten artistes won the Akademi award in the field of traditional/folk/tribal music/dance/theatre and puppetry, writer Shanta Gokhale and Chaman Lal Ahuja won in the overall contribution/scholarship for performing arts category.