ARTISTS

Abhijit Banerjee was born in 1964, and by the age of 4 years old had already received his first instruction from Tushar Kanti Bose and, later, from Manik Pal. After that, he became a disciple of the late Pandit Ghyan Prakash Ghosh, who ranked at that time among the most outstanding tabla teachers of the last century. Besides his education on the tabla, Abhijit also took vocal lessons from Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty and received lessons on the violin from Guru Ma Annapurna Devi.
As a child, Abhijit received an award at the prestigious “Tansen Music Competition”—and then, in 1984, Pandit Nikhil Banerjee chose him for his last tour of Europe as accompaniment on the tabla. After that, Abhijit established himself at the major festivals in India and worldwide—such as the Dover Lane Conference and the St. Xavier’s Music Festival.

In addition to his technical versatility, his empathetic playing style makes him one of the most in-demand tabla players of his generation. His use of pattern and variation, along with his support for the soloist, makes Abhijit a great proficient. However, aside from his accompaniment to such renowned musicians as Amjad Ali Khan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Parween Sultana, Abhijit has also been requested more and more often to perform tabla solos on major stages of the world—as well as making a name for himself in the jazz scene.

Abhijit dedicates himself to the education of future generations in his time between touring. He focuses on teaching comprehensive rhythm formation, as it was once taught to him. To accomplish this, he allied himself with musicians of other percussive instruments and founded the Dhuwani Tabla School (the literal translation of Dhuwani is “Klang”), which conducts, amongst other things, workshops in schools for the blind.