Radhey Shyam Gupta (OAM) – Vocal and Sitar teacher at Sharda Music (Founder creator and maintainer of sharda.org)

With a Sangeet Visharad (equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree in Hindustani classical music), extensive further learning and an abiding passion for this eternal and divine art form, Radhey started teaching Vocal music and the Sitar in Melbourne from 1994.

In the early 2000s he realised the potential for reaching a broader, global audience of interested students via the Internet, and started taking online lessons as well as created a comprehensive library of online Vocal lessons & Sitar lessons (www.sharda.org).

In 1996, along with some wonderful friends, he co-founded a regular, open-forum musical evening called Sangeet Sandhya with the intention of introducing good quality, classically based live music to Melbourne audiences. Not only is Sangeet Sandhya still going, it is going from strength to strength in terms of the size of its audience and quality of performances. He has since started several other musical evenings including Swar Sandhya and Raag Rung, all of which are highly popular in the Indian-Australian community of Melbourne.

Radhey was honoured to receive the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2014 for his contributions to the promotion of Hindustani classical music in Australia. For Indian readers, this is equivalent to the Padma Shri honour awarded by the Indian government.

Radhey started his formal training in Hindustani classical music at Sangeet Kala Kendra, Agra from Pandit Raghunath Talegaonkar ji, and completed Visharad in 1966 under his guidance. He  moved to Delhi to study at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (1966 – 1971) and resumed Sitar training there with Pandit Anil Dhar ji of Gandharva Mahavidhyala, a popular and accomplished All India Radio artist. Later he took more advance training with Pandit Debi Prasad Chatterjee of Kolkata, himself a disciple of many legendary masters of Hindustani classical music such as Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Annapurna ji and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan saheb. Debi Prasad ji has accepted Radhey as belonging to his authentic Senia Maihar Gharana.

Radhey has performed at many eminent concerts in both India and Australia, and continues to teach.
For more information please visit: http://www.indianlink.com.au/creating-a-classical-culture-radhey-shyam-gupta-oam/

 

Radhey Shyam Gupta awarded OAM