Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia

Hariprasad Chaurasia was born in Allahabad on 1 July 1938. His mother died when he was six, and he was raised by his father, a wrestler, who wanted the same life for his son. He studied vocal music in secret from a neighbour, Pandit Rajaram, from around the age of fifteen, then turned to the flute and trained for eight years under Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi.

He joined All India Radio at Cuttack in 1957 as a composer and performer, and was transferred to Bombay around 1962. There he became a disciple of the reclusive surbahar player Annapurna Devi of the Maihar gharana, daughter of Baba Allauddin Khan. As part of that training he switched from right-handed to left-handed playing, and plays left-handed still.

In 1967 he recorded Call of the Valley with the santoor player Shivkumar Sharma and the slide guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra — one of the best-known Indian classical records ever made, and listed in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. With Sharma he also formed the film-composing duo Shiv-Hari, scoring Hindi films including Silsila (1981) and Chandni (1989).

He has toured for more than six decades, performing at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and the Kremlin, and has worked with George Harrison, Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin and Jan Garbarek.

Chaurasia is credited with developing the bansuri into a full concert instrument, capable of the ornamentation and weight of phrase that Hindustani audiences expect from voice and from the older instruments. Much of his approach draws on vocal style.

His left-handed playing is a direct consequence of his training under Annapurna Devi — an unusual instance of a guru reshaping the physical habit of a mature performer.

Beyond the recital hall, Shiv-Hari brought Hindustani instrumental texture into mainstream Hindi cinema, and he has taught a generation of younger bansuri players.