Pandit Sanju Sahai

Sanju Sahai was born into the Sahai household in Benares, descending directly from Pandit Ram Sahai, who founded the Benares tabla gharana. He began playing at four and gave his first tabla solo at a major Benares festival at nine. He took a Bachelor of Music at thirteen; his own website gives his Master of Music at eighteen, while a 2018 Asian Arts Agency profile says nineteen. His guru was his father, Pandit Sharda Sahai, and he holds A-grade artist status with All India Radio.

As an accompanist he has played for leading Hindustani musicians and Kathak dancers, among them Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia (bansuri), Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Pandit Bhajan Sopori (santoor), Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Aashish Khan (sarod), the vocalists Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (slide guitar), Ustad Sultan Khan (sarangi) and the dancers Pandit Birju Maharaj and Gopi Krishna. He performs as a soloist across the UK, Europe, India, the Middle East, the United States and Australasia; venues have included the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and Carnegie Hall.

Alongside that classical work he has collaborated widely outside the tradition — with the composer Michael Nyman, the BBC Philharmonic, the soprano Patricia Rozario, the composer Naresh Sohal, the percussionist Pete Lockett, the oud player Yair Dalal, the dancer Akram Khan and the sitarist Anoushka Shankar — and with flamenco, jazz, Gregorian chant and hip-hop musicians. He has recorded for ARC Music and has broadcast for BBC television and radio, the BBC World Service and All India Radio. He is based in Bristol and teaches within the Pandit Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya tradition his father established.

A Benares soloist's repertoire — uthan, gat, tukra, paran and fard — played with the open, resonant strokes of the style, and adapted for cross-genre ensemble work where the tabla takes a melodic-percussive rather than purely accompanying role.