Date: 17 May 2025 

Time: 6:30 PM onwards 

Venue: KCC Amphitheatre  

This May brings you Symphony of Strings — a live concert by the Grammy-nominated slide guitar maestro Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, accompanied by the brilliant Subhashish Bhattacharya on the tabla.  

This musical journey brings together four of Pt. Debashish Bhattacharya’s original string creations — his “Trinity of Guitars”: the 24-string Chaturangui, the 14-string Gandharvi, and the 4-string Anandi Chaturangui; along with the Pushpa Veena — weaving 65 strings and rhythm into a soundscape that flows like wind across oceans and continents.  

This concert is open to all! 

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS 

Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, born in Kolkata in 1963 into a family of vocalists, learned to play classical Indian ragas on the Hawaiian lap steel slide guitar by the age of 4, making his debut on All India Radio. After further training with his family, at age 21, when most artists in the field would normally start promoting themselves, he chose instead to take on a 10-year period of rigorous and highly disciplined training with the great teacher Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, the pioneer of Indian classical guitar. From these years of hardship emerged a unique vision that not only preserves the classical tradition but extends it into newly imagined forms and colors. Critical to carrying out this vision are the unique instruments that he designs and manufactures. He has invented a number of slide guitars, uniquely adapted to his music. Prominent among these are what he calls the “Trinity of Guitars:” the 24-string Chaturangui, the 14-string Gandharvi, and the 4-string Anandi. In 2018 Pandit Bhattacharya invented the Pushpa Veena.  

Pt. Bhattacharya has received numerous awards and accolades, whose highlights include the President of India Gold Medal in 1994, Two Grammy nominations, Billboard Magazine’s Top 10 world music recordings, Songlines Magazine’s Top 10 recordings and the BBC Planet Award. His 2018 album “Hawaii to Kolkata: a Tribute to Tau Mo” was #3 in “50 Greatest World MusicAlbums of the Last Five Years” published by Songlines Magazine in the UK. The biggest of all awards are his lifetime achievement award – World Music Hall of Fame 2022. Pt Bhattacharya’s devotees and recording collaborators include Late Ustad Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin, Jerry Douglas, Derek Trucks, Ballake Sissoko, Lulo Reinhardt, Martin Simpson, and Bob Brozman.   

Subhashish Bhattacharya is a BBC award winner and Grammy-nominated musician from Kolkata. As a tabla player, he received a First-Class First Honours degree in music from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. His gurus include Sri Sunil Kr Bhattacharya, Smt Manjushree Bhattacharya, Pt Debashish Bhattacharya, Pt Shyamal Bose, Pt Ajoy Chakrabarty, and Pt Anindo Chatterjee. Today, he is a renowned tabla player and exponent of a variety of percussion instruments, and has travelled with eminent musicians like Pt Brij Bhushan Kabra, Pt Ajoy Chakraborty, Ustad Shahid Parvez, Smt Asha Voshle, Smt Kabita Krishnamurthy, Smt Shreya Ghoshal, Sri Sankar Mahadevan, and Pt Debashish Bhattacharya. Though Subhasis Bhattacharya is primarily an Indian classical musician, his influence extends far wider, from Tollywood to Bollywood, folk to world music, jazz to Hawaiian music. He has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, London, The Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, and Carnegie Hall, New York.