Arun Bhatt

A 58-years-old artist from Lucknow, Arun Bhatt, has been learning music through multiple art forms like Hindustani classical music and folk forms of Awadh. He belongs to a musical family and began to learn music from a very young age taking inspiration from the rich musical tradition of his family. He has been working hard towards achieving mastery in his craft and pursues it with tremendous passion. He considers Pt. Sitaram Bhatt, Pt. Gopinath Bhatt, and Pt. Kedarnath Bhatt as his gurus and speaks very highly of their teaching and achievements in the field of music. The influence of his ancestors is quite evident in his playing style. He holds a Visharad and Praveen degree in music and is also an A-grade artist approved by AIR. Arun also believes that music has been passed on, to him, from their musical lineage, especially his father, PT. Kedarnath Bhatt, who has a natural desire for mastering the art of playing the tabla. When he was a child/in his youth, he would try to imitate his father and thus picked up the tabla and never stopped learning. He belongs to the Lucknow Gharana, and when it comes to his playing style, he considers it to be the Faroqabadi style. He is an expert on all the forms in playing the tabla and has performed in several locations within the country and abroad. Arun was honoured with Rashtriya Yuva Puraskar, Sangeet Ratna Samman, and in 2007, with Academy Puraskar by the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Academy. He carried out brilliant performances at festivals all across the nation and overseas in the United Kingdom, USA, and all gulf nations. He regards his performance 35 years back in Lucknow when he got a chance to perform with Shiv Kumar Sharma, which changed his life as the most memorable experience. In the 90s’, he did a recording with Purnima Pandey’s ‘nityaangali’, which is still regarded as a milestone in the field of kathak music. He lives in a family of 3 people with his wife, a very well-known Kathak dancer, and his son, Arunash, who is also doing very well assisting famous music directors in Bombay. He has worked as a music assistant in the Netflix web series like Sacred Games, AK vs AK for the background score. Currently, Arun Ji is also working as Music Probakta in Bhatkhande College of Music. He strongly feels that music is a very devotional subject, and no money gives or takes its true essence. But with time, traditional music is dying away, and everything is becoming very commercial. He wishes and hopes that he can contribute something to preserve and protect traditional music in its pristine and undiluted form.

• Awadh
• Uttar Pradesh