Pandit S. Sekhar

Started learning mridangam at the age of 6 and underwent extensive training under Late Respected Sri L.V. Vaidyanathan, the foremost mridangam player of Kolkata. Sekhar is an "A" Grade artiste of both All India Radio and Doordarshan for the last 35 years.

Had his "arangetram" performances in 1966 at 2 famous temples of Kerala - 'Guruvayur' and 'Vaikom', as per his late father Sri N.S. Mani's wish.

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Has accompanied Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (Sarod Maestro) for major concerts, including at the prestigious “Dover Lane Music Conference" Kolkata. Has also accompanied maestro Ustad Ashish Khan (Sarod).

Has played with great Tabla maestros Late Pandit Kishen Maharaj, Late Pandit Shankar Ghosh, Pandit Swapan Chowdhuri, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Ustad Sabir Khan, Pandit Vijay Ghate, Pandit Arup Chatterjee and also the younger generation players like Sri Bickram Ghosh, Sri Abhijit Banerjee, Sri Shubhankar Banerje, Sri Tanmoy Bose, etc.

Has accompanied a unique Jugalbandi concert of Ustad Rashid Khan and Sri Shankar Mahadevan.

Has played background score for films of Late Sri Satyajit Ray, Late Sri Salil Chowdhury, Late Sri Tapan Sinha and Sri Goutam Ghosh. Has been continuously providing extensive tutelage to mridangam students, table players, ghatam, sitar and clarionet players and western drummers.

Has accompanied a number of stalwart Carnatic musicians -- Late Sri T.R.Mahalingam (Flute), Late Sri S.Balachander (Veena), Late Sri Maharajapuram Santhanam (Vocal), Late Sri Chitti Babu (Veena), Sri T N Krishnan(Violin), Late Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman (Violin), Late Dr.N.Ramani (Flute), Late Dr.M.Balamuralikrishna (Vocal), Late Dr S Ramanathan (Vocal), Sri T V Sankaranarayanan (Vocal), Sri P S Narayanaswamy (Vocal), Late Sri S Kalyanaraman (Vocal), Late Sri Thiruvengadu Jayaraman (Vocal), Late Sri T R Subrahmanyam (Vocal), Sri O S Thiagarajan ( Vocal ), Sri T.N.Seshagopalan (Vocal), Late Sri Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana (Vocal), Smt T Rukmani ( Violin ), Prof R Visveswaran (Veena), Sri Kadri Gopalnath (Saxophone), Late Sri Neyyatinkara Vasudevan (Vocal), Late Sri B N Suresh (Flute), Late Smt. M.L.Vasanthakumari (Vocal), Smt. Sudha Raghunathan (Vocal), Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan (Vocal), Lalgudi Sri G.J.R.Krishnan and Smt.Vijayalakshmi (Violin), Sri Ganesh and Sri Kumaresh (Violin), the Hyderabad Bros (Vocal), Sri Sanjay Subramanyam (Vocal), Sri T.M.Krishna (Vocal), Dr R Ganesh( Vocal ), S/S Mysore Nagaraj and Manjunath ( Violin ), Sri Chitraveena Ravikiran etc.

Has been a prominent founder member of Sekhar's disciple for 35 years, Maestro Bickram Ghosh's universally acknowledged and most popular world music band “Rhythmscape".

Has visited U.S.A., Canada, U.K. Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Dubai and Sri Lanka for concert tours.

On successful completion of 50 years of public performance, Pandit Sekhar was felicitated on 9th Jan 2016 at Sree Thyagaraja Hall Kolkata by his students and well-wishers both local as well as coming from different parts of the country and abroad as well as by various organizations . A beautiful lec-dem on the Palghat Mani Iyer school of play was given by Mahavidwan Sri V Kamalakar Rao on the occasion. Sri Rao was also the Chief Guest for the following grand concert by Padmabhushan Sangeeta Kalanidhi Sri T V Sankaranarayanan accompanied by Sri V K Ramanujacharulu on violin and Sri Sekhar on mridangam.

Has participated as accompanist in the prestigious grand finale championships of Zee Bangla Saregamapa and also in Star Jalsa, Star Super Singer.

Retired from TATA TEA LTD, Head Office, Kolkata as Senior Manager, Global Business Division.