Saskia Rao-de Haas

Saskia Rao-de Haas (born 1971) is a virtuoso cellist and composer from the Netherlands based in New Delhi, India. She is married to the sitarist Shubhendra Rao.

Saskia was born in Abcoude, the Netherlands in a family of music lovers. Saskia studied cello under the Hungarian cellist Tibor de Machula and went on to do a Masters in Ethnomusicology from the University of Amsterdam and the Conservatory of Rotterdam where she studied under Hari Prasad Chaurasia and Koustuv Ray.

She first came to India in 1994 where she studied Indian music under Dr. Sumati Mutatkar at the Delhi University. Subsequently, she has also been tutored by Pandit D.K. Datar, Pandit Deepak Chowdhury and Pandit Shubhendra Rao.
Saskia Rao de Haas has performed at a number of traditional festivals, such as the Dover Lane Conference in Kolkata and the Harvallabh Sangeet Samelan in Jalandhar.She has also performed at the ‘Vasanta Habbha’ in Bangalore, the ‘Maihar’ festival and the ‘Haridas Sangeet Sammelan’ in Lucknow. She has also performed at numerous international venues including the Kennedy Centre at Washington, D.C. and the Esplanande in Singapore. More recently in 2013 she also performed at various universities of UK including Oxford through the UK chapter of SPICMACAY. They are also scheduled to play at the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow in 2014.