Vivek Sonar

Vivek Sonar was born in Chalisgaon, in the interior of Maharashtra. His first teacher was his father, Shri Ramchandra Sonar, a vocalist of the varkari tradition, and he then trained with his first flute guru, Pandit Purushottam Antapurkar. In 1997 he moved to Mumbai to study with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, an association that shaped his concert playing.

He is described as working in the tantakari and layakari styles. He is the founder of the Bansuri Utsav, a festival devoted to the flute, and of the Flute Symphony, a large-scale concert bringing together 111 flutes. His collaborative project Flusion sets the bansuri alongside drums, sitar and keyboards, and he has played jugalbandi with sitar, violin, santoor and Carnatic instrumentalists. He has performed in more than a dozen countries.

Conscious of how hard it is for young musicians from small towns to find training, he founded Gurukul Pratishthan, a charitable trust that teaches in the traditional gurukul manner and now also reaches students online.

Concert flute playing in the line of Hariprasad Chaurasia, with a strong second strand in teaching and large ensemble projects.