Arnab Chakrabarty

Arnab Chakrabarty is an Indian musician. He was born on the 19th of September in the year 1980 in the metropolitan city of India – Mumbai. He is known for his excellence in classical music and his impeccable skills as a Sarod player. He majorly gives music in the Hindi language and can hence be heard in the Hindi Film Industry. He was brought up in his birth city, Mumbai. His father was an esteemed professor at the esteemed Indian Institute of Technology. He taught the Applied Science’s subject Chemistry. Arnab was nurtured under the guidance of the Sarod maestro Brij Narayan who is the disciple of the Sarangi exponent Pandit Ram Narayan, also his father. Brij’s knowledge gained from numerous esteemed artists including Ustad Ali Akbar Khan of the popular Seniya Maihar Gharana helped Arnab polish and hone his talent. After gaining his initial knowledge and laying a foundation, Arnab subsequently learned from Shahjahanpur Gaharana’s Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta.

At an early age of 18, Arnab Chakrabarty was given a Ford Foundation scholarship to Hampshire College. He advanced with a dual degree in International Relations and ethnomusicology from the college in the year 2002. This once in a lifetime experience helped him the other tradition of world music. It also led him to experiment with original ideas in musical idioms, and sarod design and construction. Arnab also trained by the school which was found by the legendary Tansen. Apart from Maihar and Shahjahanpur schools, his real inspiration was Ustad Vilayat Khan Among the Great Kalakars of India, Ustad Vilayat K >> Read More... who took the style of Etawah Gharana to new heights. Arnab still dows collaboration with Vinayak Chittar who belongs to Arnab’s gharana. He has also studied with notable gharanas of Gwalior and Agra including Pandit Yeshwantbua Joshi.

Until the death of Kalyan Mukherjee in March 2010, Arnab used to train with him. Arnab has been performing since the year 1980. He has performed all around the world, and has been a part of several projects like Silk Road Festival (2010, Damascus), Masters of Indian Music (2012, Trafo, Budapest), and Born Into Brothels. The soundtrack of the last project which was about Kolkata’s Red-Light Children won an Oscar in the year 2005. Currently, Arnab performs frequently in Europe and India. He resides in Leeds in the state of West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. Many music maestros have appreciated his work, stating that Arnab is the intermediator of Indian classical music in the world and he is the truest successor.