Pandit Nityanand Haldipur

He was born in Bombay on 7 May 1948 into a musical household. His father, Niranjan Haldipur, a senior disciple of Pandit Pannalal Ghosh, gave him his first training in the flute. At nine he received instruction from Pannalal Ghosh himself. Over the following two decades he studied with Pandit Chidanand Nagarkar and then with Pandit Devendra Murdeshwar, the senior-most disciple of Pannalal Ghosh, under whom he worked on technique.

In 1986 Annapurna Devi — daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan, and by then long withdrawn from performance — accepted him as a disciple. His training with her continued for the rest of her life, and the Ali Akbar Khan Centennial describes his mature playing as the result of that work. He cared for her in her later years.

All India Radio rates him a Top Grade artist. He teaches in his guru's manner, taking students on flute but also on saxophone, violin, guitar and voice, and holds listening sessions on the recordings of the Maihar musicians.

Darbar describes his style as a fusion of the ideas of Ustad Wazir Khan and Pandit Pannalal Ghosh — the beenkari line that reached him through Annapurna Devi, set on an instrument whose modern classical idiom Pannalal Ghosh largely invented. In performance the raga is unhurried, weighted toward alaap, and closer to the surbahar than to the flute's lighter repertoire.