Artist Profiles

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is internationally renowned for his successful Indianizing of the Hawaiian guitar with perfect assimilation of sitar, sarode and vina techniques. Seeking a new, longer sustaining sound and to bring out the nuances of vocal music, he modified the guitar incorporating a bigger fret-board and twenty strings including several sympathetic resonance strings. The result was christened the Mohan Vina, which with his expressive, versatile playing he has firmly established on the Indian classical stage.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt received his initial musical training from his brother, Shashi Mohan Bhatt. He later became a disciple of the legendary sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Bhatt's playing is marked by purity of tone, faultless legato and blinding speed. In an interview, he says:  “I combine the Gayaki and Tantrakari Ang on the Mohan Vina. Gayaki implies drawing out the elements of vocalism and Tantrakari implies having an intricate hold over the strings and producing the language of the instrument”. He has traveled the world, and participated in a variety of jazz and world music festivals. Major appearances include Madison Square Garden, New York on the 50th anniversary of the U.N.,1995,   Royal Albert Hall, London in the 'BBC Proms 100 Years', 1994 ,  Lincoln Center (New York) on the 125th Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Festival of International Guitar Stars (Toronto), 1995,  Jazz Festival (Ottawa), 1995.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is also a master collaborator in fusion/crossover albums. Well known collaborative works are those with ace American Dobro guitar player Jerry Douglas, with the Blues guitarist Taj Mahal and Chitravina Ravikiran in the album ‘Mumtaz Mahal’ and a rare combination with the Arabian Oudh player Simon Shaheen. ‘Tabula Rasa’ an album with world-renowned Banjo player Bela Fleck, and Chinese Erhu player Jei Bing Chang was nominated for the Grammy award in 1997. His most famous collaboration was with guitarist Ry Cooder in the album ‘A meeting by the river’ (recorded in one evening without any rehearsal) which won the 1994 Grammy in world music.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s compositions include "Music for Relaxation" for Music Today, and "Megh Dootam" a Sanskrit epic poem featuring vocal performances by top-notch Indian film singers Kavita Krishnamoorty and A. Hariharan. He has also recorded and composed for several films.

Pandit Bhatt is the recipient of numerous national and international awards and honors, major among which are Padmashree (President of India’s award for outstanding contribution to the Arts) – 2002, Sangeet Natak Academy award (Delhi, India) – 1999, Musical Scientist award (Bangalore, India) – 1996, The Grammy award for the album “A meeting by the river” – 1994

Chitravina N. Ravikiran


Simply stated, Chitravina N. Ravikiran is a unique musical phenomenon who made international headlines at the age of two in 1969, when he identified and demonstrated over 325 ragas (melodic scales), 175 talas (rhythm cycles), and answered technical from musical maestros including Pandit Ravi Shankar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, M.S. Subbulakshmi and Ustad Alla Rakha.

Trained by his father chitravina maestro Narasimhan, he commenced his career as a concert vocalist when he was five. He switched over to playing the exquisite 21-stringed slide instrument, chitravina at age twelve and has since been among the most sought-after Carnatic concert artists. Learning several masterpieces from the legendary vocalist T. Brinda, helped him build a unique musical style, a blend of vision and virtuosity.

Today Ravikiran is easily among the busiest artists in the world. He has been given pride of place in events such as the Autumn Festival, France, Millennium Festival, UK, Brisbane International Festival, Australia, Toronto Harborfront Festival, Canada, Cal Arts Festival, USA and concerts all over the world. He has been featured by channels like, CNN, BBC, ABC, Channel 4 and Swiss National TV and record labels such as Nimbus, Waterlily, Naxos and Music Today. Recently he redesigned the chitravina, to make a smaller instrument, the nava-chitravina. Using just one flat resonator on the right side, the tone of the nava-chitravina brings out the high frequencies better than the traditional chitravina.

His world music collaborations with the likes of Blues guitarist Taj Mahal, Frame-drummer Glen Velez and Brazilian jazz pianist Jovino Santos Neto have won accolades from many quarters.  Ravikiran’s most emphatic contribution to world music however is Melharmony, a unique technique to reconcile melody and harmony. He successfully premiered Melharmony in a collaborative project with artists of the BBC Philharmonic orchestra for the Millennium Festival in the UK, presented by Kalasangam. This was selected as the BEST concert out of nearly 2000 world music events featured in the festival.

Ravikiran is a prolific composer, with around 450 compositions in five languages, including music-dance creations such as 'Lakshmi Prabhavam' (USA 1997), 'Savithri’ (Australia, 1998), ‘Pancha Kriya’ (Canada 1998), ‘Cosmos’ (Canada 1999), 'Vinayaka Vaibhavam' (USA 2000) and ‘In the Long White Moonlight’ (USA 2001).

Honored with his first title at the age of 6, Ravikiran has since been the first or youngest to receive honors and awards like The Millenium festival award (UK), Star of India, Sangeet Samraat (Wisdom International), Kalaimamani (Tamil Nadu Govt.), Kumar Gandharva Samman (Madhya Pradesh Govt.), Sangeeta Choodamani (Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Madras).

Chitravina N Ravikiran's album for Naxos Records, Rays and Forays, was a finalist for the Best Contemporary World Album in the 5th annual New Age Voice Music Awards for 2001. It was a collaboration between top international artistes - Glen Velez, Jovino Santos Neto, Poovalur Srinivasan, Qui Xia He, and the late Khanjira wizard G Harishankar. The CD had also made it to several Top 10 and Top 20 charts. Ravikiran is the first Indian to receive this honour.

Subrata Bhattacharya


Few Tabla players enjoy such instant recognition and acclaim among concert audiences as Subrata Bhattacharya. He had his initial training from Shri.Tamal Krishna Chaterjee, Shri.Tapan Kr. Banerjee and Tabla Maestro Pt. Shankar Ghosh.

He is a regular artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan TV, and has to his credit numerous performances at some of the most prestigious venues in India and abroad. Major appearances include Dover Lane Music Conference-(Periodicals), Salt Lake Music Conference, India Week concert in Doha, Qatar, Bangladesh Music concert in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, Yerevan World Music Festival 2000 and 2001 in Armenia, Indian Festival of Dance and Music 2000 in Bahrain, ITC Sangeet Sammelan 2001.

Subrata is an “accompanist of choice” of the best known musicians and is acknowledged as a Tabla player who combines technical knowledge with creativity. For the past few years, he has been accompanying such renowned artists as Pt. Budhaditya Mukherjee, Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt and Pt. Ronu Majumdar.

T H Subaschandran

Subashchandran is an accomplished percussionist whose fingers execute the whims of his mind. His dexterous, breezy play is effortless and brings out his rich expertise borne out of innate ability and association with top artistes.  The son and disciple of T H Harihara Sarma, Subash is the brother of the world-famous ghatam artist, “Vikku” Vinayakaram. He also trained under K M Vaidyanathan and Palghat Ramachandra Iyer. In addition to the Ghatam (clay pot), he is an expert in the art of konnakkol (vocal percussion).

Subash has toured around the world and performed with several great musicians including Dr. L Subramaniam, Zubin Mehta, and Ravikiran and with orchestras like New York Philharmonic. His konnakkol has mesmerized audiences in USA, Switzerland, UK, Germany and many other countries.