Biography

Kartik Seshadri is a professional instrumentalist based out of the capital of Telangana, Hyderabad. As a sitarist, he attracted widespread recognition when he began performing full-length solos at the age of six in India. The sitar maestro is now hailed as an amazingly-proficient musical powerhouse and is noted for his music’s expressive beauty, rich tonal sensibility, and rhythmic intricacy. The Washington Post has praised him and the Times of India (2011) noted that Seshadri’s performance was a show stopper that transported the audience to soak soul deep in his mesmerising performance. The prestigious Songlines Magazine (UK) has, in its February 2012 issue, declared his latest album ‘Sublime Ragas’ as one of the ‘Top of the World’s Top Ten’ CD’s, further citing him as one of the world’s leading sitar players. A multifarious convergence of musical influences, Seshadri has toured and trained with legendary sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar, and is considered as one of his chief protégés. In 2005 and 2010, Seshadri collaborated with Philip Glass, a prominent composer, on the critically-acclaimed Orion project. Seshadri performs extensively in his homeland and around the world ranging from venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia, Lincoln Center, to the ITC, Dover Lane, Saptak Sammelans, and Sawai Gandharva in India to name but a few. Seshadri is also a renowned composer and educator of Indian classical music that includes his Quartet for a Raga and his latest ‘Concerto #1 for Sitar and Chamber Orchestra’ that has received its world premiere last October in San Diego. As an educator, Seshadri heads one of the biggest programs of Indian classical music at the University of California, San Diego besides being frequently invited as a renowned guest faculty member at various musical establishments around the world such as the Sangeet Research Academy (Kolkata), Banff Center, the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, Stanford University and to name a few.