Pandit Arvind Parikh

Arvind Parikh was born in Ahmedabad on 19 October 1927 into a Gujarati business family. He played dilruba as a child and could handle violin, flute, mandolin and jal-tarang by the age of fourteen, beginning systematic sitar training with a local teacher, Makrand Badshah. In 1944 he moved to Bombay, enrolling at Elphinstone College at his guru's insistence while learning sitar from Ustad Vilayat Khan. That training continued without a break until Vilayat Khan's death in 2004 — sixty years of talim.

He has performed in India, Europe, the United States and Asia, and has been a regular broadcaster on All India Radio, while running a logistics business in parallel with his musical life. In later years he has given most of his time to teaching and to documentation: training manuals, CD-ROM courses on sitar practice, compilations of ragas and compositions published as Sitar Guru and Bandish Parampara, and the Baithak series of recorded conversations with senior musicians.

He was vice-president of the International Music Council (UNESCO) from 1994 to 1997, is president of the Indian Musicological Society and chairs the western India chapter of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy. He also convened the All India Musicians' Group, drawing together Hindustani and Carnatic performers to argue the case for classical music with government, industry and the media.

He plays in the style of his guru, which his own students call the Vilayatkhani manner within the wider Etawah gharana. His work has been as much documentary as performing: recorded talim, written compositions and the Baithak conversations, intended to pass on method rather than only repertoire.