Arnab Chakraborty

Arnab Chakrabarty (born September 19, 1980) is a Hindustani classical musician and sarod player. Arnab Chakraborty hails from the Kolkata and is a perfect example of a singing sensation in the making.

Arnab is basically from Kolkata, He grew up in Mumbai, where his father was a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology. His tutelage commenced under the Sarod exponent Brij Narayan, disciple of his father the Sarangi maestro Pandit Ram Narayan and also Ustad Ali Akbar Khan of the Seniya Maihar Gharana. Arnab subsequently trained under Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta of the Shahjahanpur Gharana.

A regular live performer since the age of 15, Arnab Chakraborty came to Mumbai in 1999 to pursue playback as a career. At the age of 18 Arnab received a Ford Foundation scholarship, which led to a dual degree in ethnomusicology and international relations from Hampshire College in 2002. This experience exposed him to other traditions of music, and led him to experiment with new ideas in sarod construction and design, as well as musical idioms.

Arnab's early training followed the Maihar and Shahjahanpur schools, which both derived from the Senia idiom founded by the legendary Mian Tansen. However, he has long been influenced by the vocalism-inspired style of the Etawah Gharana, which was taken to new heights by Ustad Vilayat Khan. Arnab continues an extended period of part-tutelage part-collaboration with Vinayak Chittar of this Gharana. He has also studied with a number of vocalists of the Agra and Gwalior Gharanas, notably Pandit Yeshwantbua Joshi.

Arnab had reverted to training under a master of the Shahjahanpur Gharana, Prof Kalyan Mukherjea, until Mukherjea's death in March 2010.

Arnab has had several significant concerts. He made his solo debut in 1994, and won the National Collegiate Competition for Music and Dance three years in a row between 1995 and 1997. In 1999 he performed before Dr Kofi Annan, then the United Nations Secretary General, a memorial programme for the Pakistani peace activist Eqbal Ahmed. Notable performances at home include recitals at the IMG-Britannia Young Masters’ Festival, Mumbai; the Uttarpara Music Conference, Kolkata; and concerts at the Nehru Centre and the National Centre for the Performing Arts.