Bapu Padmanabha Biography 
Bapu Padmanabha is an Indian Flautist or Bansuri player from Karnataka, also known as a composer. He performs Hindustani music. He is a national award winning film music composer, whose 2016 work, Allama in Kannada earned him best music director award. He shared this award with the doyen of Indian film music, Ilaiyaraaja. He has composed songs for a few Kannada films, and also performed as a flautist in many recordings for movies. One of the most successful and young flautists of present-day generation, he has exhibited his talents in music concerts across India, and a few music festivals outside.
Bapu Padmanabha hails from a musical family Harihar, Karnataka, with links to Carnatic and Hindustani music. His hometown belongs to Davanagere District. Initially he was introduced to harmonium and vocals by his grandfather who was a harmonium player. Bapu’s younger sister is a Hindustani vocalist and singer. As a vocalist, Bapu took musical lessons from his sister as well. He studied tool engineering in Hospet, Karnataka. He had limited knowledge only, as taught by his grandfather.
By that time, he got obsessed with the musical instrument flute, and he started practising it. In his mind, he fixed Hariprasad Chaurasia as his guru, bought his cassettes and started imitating his style. After completing mechanical engineering, he was associated with the same profession for a while. However he left it to pursue a career in music. His first major performance was in OSHO Samadhi at Osho commune meditation in 2001. He received positive response for this performance, which motivated him to continue with the same field. He has worked as a music director for a few Bengali films at FTI, and a few Kannada films too, including the national award winning movie, Allama.
Published: October 16, 2018
Updated: October 16, 2018
