Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, born in 1938 is an Indian classical musician, working in the Hindustani classical music tradition. Santoor, a type of hammered dulcimer whose strings are struck with a pair of light carved wooden mallets is a folk instrument from the valley of Kashmir, which owes its classical status to Pandit Shivkumar Sharma.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Santoor or Shata-Tantri Veena as it was called in the ancient times, was used as an accompaniment to a specific type of singing called Sufiana Mausiqi. When Pandit Uma Dutt Sharma, a renowned vocalist from Jammu, and a disciple of Pt. Bade Ramdasji of Benaras gharana spotted it, he was convinced of the potentialities of the instrument. After extensive research on the instrument he bestowed the responsibility of establishing it on the concert platform on his only son Shivkumar. He is the master instrumentalist of the santoor, and in the early years he was a student of the tabla and a vocalist.

He is credited with single-handedly making the santoor a popular classical instrument, to the extent that the santoor and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma are synonymous. After in-depth research, he made some important modifications on this hundred stringed instrument, like a new chromatic arrangement of notes and increased the range to cover full three octaves. In fact, he modified the Kashmiri folk instrument to make it more suitable for his classical technique, increasing the range of the instrument and making it capable of a smoother 'meend' (the glissando or gliding between notes required in Hindustani classical music to emulate the human voice). Besides, he also created a new technique of playing with which he could sustain notes and maintain sound continuity. Today Santoor is at par with any classical instrument, well established not just all over India, but across the globe.

Partnering with Hariprasad Chaurasia, he has composed music for Indian movies. He has often performed and made records with tabla player Zakir Hussain. His son Rahul Sharma is also a santoor player. Rahul started accompanying his father in concerts in 1996, at the age of 24, and has quickly become a sought after concert artist.

Shivkumar Sharma is the recipient of a long list of National and International awards conferred upon him like the Honorary Citizen for the City of Baltimore, USA (1985), Sangeet Natak Academy Award (1986), Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar (1990), Honorary Doctorate from the University of Jammu (1991) Padmashree (1991), Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award (1998), and Padma Vibhushan (2001), to name a few.

External Links

• http://www.santoor.com/maestro.html