Chandrakant Sardeshmukh

Chandrakant Sardeshmukh (1955 – 15 August 2011) was a Hindustani classical sitar player of the Maihar Gharana (school).Sardeshmukh was taught by Ustad Shabuddin Khan and Khurshid Mirajkar from the age of 4, and became popular as child artist. He performed in the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival in Pune in 1963. In the same year, when he was eight years old, he was declared a child prodigy by Pandit Ravi Shankar, who accepted him as a student. From then until 1976 he learned with both Shankar and his wife Annapurna Devi. In 1976 he was awarded Sangeet Vibhushan (Sitar Pravin) by University of Rajasthan. He did a Ph.D. in the Samavedic basis of Indian music from University of Poona. He had knowledge and background in Ayurveda (Indian medicine) from his father. He did extensive research in healing music and gave several healing music sessions to individuals and groups. He toured around the world extensively, giving concerts in India, Germany, Australia, Japan, and the USA. He recorded traditional Indian music as well as experimented with several western and Japanese musicians. Sardeshmukh died in a car accident near Solapur on 15 August 2011. He was 56 years old.