Niladri Kumar Biography 
Niladri Kumar is an Indian classical vocalist and sitar player better known for fusion music. Apart from many live concerts, he has also worked in many movies as a sitar player behind the screen for filmy music. He was born to sitar player Kartick Kumar, a disciple of Ravi Shankar and was regarded as a child prodigy. Apart from sitar, he works with musical instruments - zitar, electric pickup and electric sitar. He has created a unique instrument, a modified sitar, which he named zitar. He received Sangeet Natak Akademi's Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, awarded to young musicians, in March 2007. He is also a recipient of several MTV Immies award for the Best Classical/Fusion Instrumental for his album If.
Niladri Kumar was born in the year 1973 to talented sitar player, Kartick Kumar. He started learning sitar under his father at the age of four and gave his first public performance at the age of six at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. His musical journey in association with films began during 1980’s. He worked under famous musical duo of Bollywood, Laxmikant-Pyarelal in the late 1980s. He has also worked with Zakir Hussain during this time. Kumar has also worked with Jonas Hellborg and V. Selvaganesh on their album Kali's Sonand with John McLaughlin on album Floating Point. Later he got opportunity to work with many leading music directors of Bollywood like - A.R. Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Pritam.
He combined Indian classical music instruments - sitar and guitar and created a new instrument – Zitar, for which he was noticed. He got this idea from a traveling sitar and reduced the number of strings on the instrument from 20 to five. His first full album composed using the instrument, titled Zitar was released in 2008. Most recently in 2013 March, he won the MN Mathur Award in the 51st Maharana Kumbha Sangeet Samaroh.
Published: N/A
Updated: October 12, 2017
