Pandir Shiv Kumar Sharma in performance mode!

Pandir Shiv Kumar Sharma on the santoor...

Shivkumar Sharma (born January 13, 1938, Jammu, India) is an Indian Santoor player. The Santoor is a folk instrument from Kashmir and Jammu. Sharma is often referred to by the title Pandit.

Shivkumar Sharma is the master instrumentalist of the Santoor, after some years as a vocalist. He is credited with making the Santoor a popular Classical Instrument. In a 1999 interview to rediff.com, Shivkumar said that it was his father who decided that he should play the Santoor and that he never thought he would be choosing it when he started learning music. He composed the background music for one of the scenes in Shantaram's Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje in 1956. He recorded his first solo album in 1960.

In 1967, he teamed up with flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and Brij Bhushan Kabra to produce a concept album, Call of the Valley (1967) which turned out to be one of the greatest hits in Indian Classical Music. He has composed music for many Hindi films in collaboration with Hariprasad Chaurasia starting with Silsila (1980). They came to be known as the 'Shiv-Hari' music duo. Some of the movies they composed music for that were big musical hits are Faasle (1985), Chandni (1989), Lamhe (1991) and Darr (1993).

Shivkumar is the recipient of national and international awards, including an honorary citizenship of the city of Baltimore, USA, in 1985, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1986, the Padma Shri in 1991, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2001.

Source: Wikipedia

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and [email protected]