About

I play the sitar semi-professionally. My training began in Lahore, Pakistan under Ustad Alam Khan in 1991. After he passed in 1998, I studied music with vocalists Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Nazir Ahmed and attended several sitar workshops. In 2007, I became a disciple of Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, the world’s leading contemporary sitarist. I currently teach music at LearnQuest Academy of Music and at the SPK Academy of Music. Here is a clip from a home concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUps9TeV64

I have had performances in Lahore, Karachi, Boston, New York, Seattle, Burlington VA, Manchester NH, San Francisco. I have performed for All Pakistan Music Conference, Lahore Arts Forum, Lahore Chitrkar, Sampurna (Karachi), India Community Centre (Rochester, NY), Karnatic-Hindustani Music Circle (Boston), Baithak (Boston), the Brahma Kumaris Centre (Boston), the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem MA), Harvard University (Mather House). I won a gold medal at a national music competition organized by All Pakistan Music Conference in 1992. 

Born in a literary household in Lahore, I also grew up reading Western philosophy and literature and Urdu poetry. Existentialism had a major influence in my formative years. I am a fan of the classical Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib and I write poetry as well. The immersion in both the Western intellectual and Eastern artistic traditions has taught me that the world (whether external or internal) can be analyzed and it can be felt. Each opens up a different universe, and both universes together complete the picture.