KUSHAL DAS - IX INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL SITAR IN SAINT PETERSBURG 2016

Pandit Kushal Das is a leading master of both the sitar and surbahar, with a style that builds on Pandit Nikhil Banerjee’s Maihar repertoire. Despite growing up in a family of successful sitarists and sarodias he was never pressured to learn classical music, with his family first letting him play his way through film songs and find his own connection to the instrument.
But Kushal soon realised his calling ("when I suddenly realised where my goal was, I became serious”), and worked tirelessly to capture the nuances of his idols. Like Vilayat Khan he uses a first-hand understanding of vocal music to expand his mellifluous string phrasings, bending patiently around both his instruments in a gharana-blending style. And like Banerjee he garners particular respect from fellow musicians - the late sarod master Pandit Buddhadev Dasgupta once remarked that he wished to be born again so he could learn music from Kushal.