Rajendra Prasanna

R. Prasanna is a multi-talented musician who can play guitar, piano, bass, and percussion in various genres like Carnatic, world fusion, jazz, and progressive rock. He is also a teacher, producer, singer, music educator, and composer. He was born on Oct 2, 1970, in Chennai, India. At the mere age of five, seeing his neighbor play guitar instigated his interest in the instrument. Five years later, he bought the guitar for himself and could recreate Tamil and Hindi mainstream songs on it. Aware of Prasanna's inclination towards music, his father's colleague would give him the cassettes of pop bands like Pointer Sisters, ABBA, Peaches and Herb, The Bee Gees, and Toto. It fascinated him. Simultaneously, he was also listening to Classical music and looked up to Illayaraja.

C.G. Shanmugaraj, A. Kanyakumari, Tiruvarur Balasubramaniam, Sangeetha Kalanidhi, and Thangadural Samuel are his teachers. Besides music, he was also an exemplary student and exceptionally bright in Maths and Science. He has studied naval architecture from one of Madras's prestigious educational institution, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. After graduating from there, he took up a job with a software consultant but later gave it all up to continue his tryst with music. He has also done a major in Classical and Jazz composition from Berklee College of Music, Boston. In his year there, he won the Guitar Achievement Award for outstanding student accomplishment. He has performed at several locations in the country with his band.

The President of India gave him a congratulatory citation for his work in the movie Smile Pinki. He has managed to achieve many awards like the Lifetime Achievement Award in Carnatic music from Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. H.H. Jayendra Saraswathi presented the award to him. His composition Falsehood, featured in Henry Martin and Keith Waters' third edition book named Essentials of Jazz – the first 100 years. He has worked on several projects, irrespective of their language and medium, and has won accolades for it. He has also taught and guided several musicians like Ranjani Sridhar, Avyay, Shruthi, Shiam, Andre Fludd, Srivatsa, Ayyappan, Praveen, Gokul, Raghav, much more. He has also founded South Asia's state-of-the-art and largest college named Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music where music lovers can enroll themselves for learning contemporary, jazz, and rock music. Until February 2014, he was also the institute's president. He was also one of the faculty at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He is one of the most famous guitar players of the country who has can also play the instrument's modern version with relative ease.

Another version Of Bio:

Rajendra Prasanna is an artist of Hindustani Classical Music from Benares Gharana. He is an expert Flutist Bansuri (Indian Flute) and Shehnai (Indian oboe). Like many classical musicians and singers who had hailed from Varanasi, even Rajendra Prasad Rajendra Prasad is a famous actor in Telugu. He is >> Read More... was born in Benares on 15 April 1956 and spent his childhood there.

This 61-year old musician generally performs in stages at abroad. He was born in a musical family and music was in his genes. His father Pandit Raghunath Prasanna and Uncle Pt.Bholanath Prasanna were all bansuri player.

His uncle was the guru of renowned flute player Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Every member of the family used to participate in AIR and Doordarshan. That is how music was passed from one generation to another and they all lived in this tradition with humility. 

Later on,  when his family moved to Delhi in the early seventies, Rajendra Prasanna became the disciple of Hafeez Ahmed Khan and Sarfaraz Hussain Khan. He also took lessons from singer Mahadev Mishra of Banaras Gharana, and trained his vocal strengths. He was a top grade artist of the All India Radio.

He had even won the Grammy Award certificate for his participation in "Concert for George" in 2004. In addition, he was conferred with Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Academy Award (1995). He was the first flutist and shehnai player who visited Pakistan after the partition for a music concert in 1986.

He performed at many European and Asian nations including France, Belgium, Poland, Germany, U.K, Switzerland, Russia, Norway, Japan, Mauritius, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and all Middle Eastern countries. He also has given music in the famous teleserial “ Sanjha Chulha Aired on DD national, Sanjha Chulha revolves aroun >> Read More... ”.

He has composed music for some private albums too which were sung by singers like Sadhana Sargam Sadhana Sargam is a playback singer of Indian cine >> Read More... , Chhote Majid Shola, and Nishant Khan. The private album ‘Kuch KarhoYaar Tum’ was sung by Nishat Khan Nishat Khan a man of great capabilities. The legen >> Read More... and Sadhana Sargam, and another album song ‘Woh Ladki Yaad Aati Hai’ was sung by Chhote Majid Shola.The album song ‘Kuch Karho Yaar Tum’ was just not a solo one but it had duet voices too of Sadhana Sargam and Nishant Khan.