This site is a tribute to Pandit Vijay Raghav Rao, who has been at the forefront of classical Indian music for the past six decades. Panditji was born in India in 1925, and has been playing the bamboo flute since he was a child. He originally divided his time between classical dance and Carnatic (South Indian) music. However, upon meeting his guru (the illustrious Pandit Ravi Shankar, master of the sitar, with whom he studied and collaborated for 30 years) in 1945, he switched his focus solely to Hindustani Sangeet, the beautiful classical music of northern India. In the six decades since then, Panditji has toured internationally, composed and conducted orchestras, and spent decades as chair of All India Radio's Film Division. He conducted the music for India's Independence celebration at the Red Fort in Dehli in 1947, and has scored the music for many films. He has toured and recorded with tabla masters such as Ustad Alla Rakha, Pandit Anindo Chaterjee and Sabir Khan, and has taught the art of bansuri to many students, including G.S. Sachdev and Ronu Majumdar. He has conceived a number of new ragas and written thousands of compositions of traditional ragas. He has also written several books of poetry, and have been the focus of several documentaries.
You can hear more of Vijayji's music at IndianFluteMusic.com
