Performers
Performers
Roopa Panesar sitar
Sudarshan Singh tabla
R N Prakash carnatic percussion
Camilo Tirado electroacoustics
Artist biographies
Roopa Panesar is considered one of the finest sitar players from the UK to emerge on the Indian classical music scene. She embraces Indian classical music, as well as jazz and western classical genres, to compelling effect.
Her outstanding musical ability has resulted in a stream of high-profile national and international concerts, tours and televised performances. She has toured extensively in the UK, India, Europe and USA. She has also collaborated with Mercury Prize-winner Talvin Singh and been a participating musician at London’s Darbar Festival of Indian classical music and dance and WOMAD UK.
Roopa Panesar was born in London and raised in Leicester, one of the UK’s most culturally diverse cities, giving her the opportunity to learn sitar from an early age. At seven she began studies with renowned educationalist and leading UK musician Dharambir Singh MBE, who had been a disciple of the late Vilayat Khan. Her talent was quickly recognised and she remains with her musical guru to this day.
Her knowledge and skills have also been strengthened by additional training with Pandit Arvind Parikh, Shahid Parvez, Pandit Buddhaditya Mukherjee and Bahauddin Dagar. Roopa Panesar is among a modest number of Indian women worldwide who have pursued a full-time career on the sitar as a performer and teacher.
In February last year she showcased her latest album ATMA (‘The Soul’) at the Barbican Centre. She has described the music on it thus:
‘ATMA is an offering of peace and love for the purpose of elevating the listener in the face of challenges that human beings deal with.’
On the album she performs in a wide range of styles, including Hindustani classical music, western classical, jazz and world music. It was recorded with a panoply of leading Indian classical and jazz musicians. This is her third album, following her debut Khoj (released in 2011) and SUBHA (released in 2022), an album of morning ragas on which she is accompanied by tabla master Ramdas Palsule.
