Sardar Sardool Singh ji

My musical career started with an introduction to the Indian bamboo flute at an early age. I was able to play with small local music groups in my primary years. In my high school days I started to play the violin. My first Indian classical musical training was done on the violin. I played the violin for almost seven years and studied Indian classical music initially from Pt. Nathu Ram Ji and later from Prof. E.N.Das. I started to play sarode after I arrived in Australia to undertake my tertiary education.

The fundamentals of sarode were taught to me by Smt. Sharan Rani when she came to give concerts in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. I accompanied Sharan Rani on the Tanpura. I was able to take further lessons on the sarode, both technical and musical from Pt. Ravi Shanker when he came to give concerts in Sydney in 1963. In fact my serious practice on sarode started with the lessons from Pt. Ravi Shanker . Later I also studied classical Indian music on sard from Pt. Radhika Mohan Moitra and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan during their concert tour visits to Sydney. Lately I have studied Indian classical music from Pt. Gulam Qadir and Pt. Ashok Roy at the Australian Institute of Eastern Music in Sydney.

I have been performing at the annual Folk-loric festival under the name of Shruti Indian Music Ensemble for the past twenty two years. Sangeet, an Australian music society, sponsored me to give two concerts in Sydney in 1987. A grant from the Australian Arts Council in 1988 enabled me to give four concerts around Sydney districts. I was invited to give concerts in Perth by the Ghazal society of Western Australia in 1991.

I have been playing the sarode regularly at the Indian Affair Restaurant for the last seventeen years.