Fellow Spotlight: Souryadeep Bhattacharyya

Featuring the magical Sarod player – Souryadeep Bhattacharyya.

Souryadeep Bhattacharyya is a well known name among the new generation of Indian classical musicians. He is a “Gandabandhan” disciple of the legendary sarodiya Pt.Alok Lahiri under Guru-Shishya Parampara and has an unique and versatile playing style encompassing the Maihar, Shahjahanpur and Gwalior gharanas of sarod. He has several awards and honors to his credit including the National Gold Medal in Non-Percussion Instrumental Category (Association of Indian Universities-2008), Pt.Nikhil Banerjee Memorial Award (Dover Lane Competition-2009) and is a B-High Grade artist affiliated with All India Radio. Souryadeep has been performing with distinction and critical acclaim nationally and internationally both as an Indian Classical Musician and a World Music performer and composer. Souryadeep was an IndianRaga Fellow in 2014 and a mentor at the 2015 IndianRaga Fellowship.
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Read below about Souryadeep’s favorite Fellowship productions and why he enjoyed working on them.


RagaTone

“The idea to foray into world music at the IndianRaga fellowship in Chicago was conceived along with Sriram by me and Akshay, the mentors and as the first piece of the Ragatone Triad, this set the benchmark for the Raga Series and later the Ragatone Ensemble of IndianRaga that was formed at the fellowship and performed recently at Joe’s Pub in NYC. The inputs of all the participating fellows in this video and their different perspectives made this work truly rewarding and this is one of my favorite creative compositions!”

Bideshini

“With the idea of recording creative pieces in regional languages in the Fellowship in 2015, I decided, given my roots in Kolkata, to go with one of my favorite Rabindrasangeets. Putting a new creative twist to the romantic song, I introduced pensive and reflective interludes in Raag Charukeshi that was the polar opposite of the feelings portrayed by the Bengali part of the composition. The lyrics penned by my co-fellow Jai Sovani-Garud and the brilliant work by all the fellows who were in it made the composition a notable one for me.”



Sarod Violin mashup

“As a fellow coming in for the first time to IndianRaga with no experience of working with Carnatic musicians this duet was an important moment for me personally and it helped me envision and figure out how to play with carnatic musicians, something I have done regularly after that. With the wonderful Sharada Krishnan on the violin and amazing support on the Tabla and Mridangam by the other fellows, this piece came out beautifully and was the one of my first IndianRaga recordings in New York, and hence one of the most special!”

Learn more about Souryadeep and his music at his Facebook Page and Website.