Pandit Raghunath Seth

Born in Gwalior in 1931, Raghunath Seth began learning music at the age of twelve from his elder brother Kashi Prasad, and went on to train under the musicologist S. N. Ratanjankar, principal of the Bhatkhande music institute in Lucknow. At nineteen he moved to Mumbai, where he studied with Pandit Pannalal Ghosh.

Alongside his classical playing he built a long career in recorded and screen music. He composed scores for around two thousand documentary films and for television, with work on "Ocean to Sky", "The Last Tiger", "Mughal Gardens" and "Death Sentence" among the films noted for their music. He also wrote songs recorded by singers including Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, K. J. Yesudas, Anuradha Paudwal, Talat Mahmood and Hariharan, and composed for the 1988 Malayalam film "Aaranyakam", directed by Hariharan with lyrics by O. N. V. Kurup. His flute album "Nidra" has found a large later audience online.

He taught many flute players, among them his son Apurva Shrivastava, Chetan Joshi, Steve Gorn, Rao Kyao, Chris Hinze, Clive Bell, Sunil Gupta, Atul Sharma and Datta Chaughule. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1994 and died in Mumbai on 15 February 2014, aged 83.

A concert flautist whose scoring work for documentary and film gave the bansuri a long presence in recorded Indian screen music.