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All Music Guide:
Tarun Bhattacharya has been called "a master of one hundred strings." One of the most influential players of the santoor, India's hammered dulcimer-like instrument, Bhattacharya has continued to expand on the instrument's capabilities. In addition to adding an extra string, whose pitch can be varied by finger pressure, Bhattacharya has incorporated meend, an expressive sliding style of ornamentation. Jazz Times described Bhattacharya's playing as "subtle in inflection and supple in phrasing."
The first santoor player featured on the influential all-India radio and TV show Raag Rang, Bhattacharya received his earliest musical instruction from his father, Shri Robi Bhattacharya, who played sitar and santoor. Although he started on the tabla, he switched to the santoor at th age eight. After studying with Dulal Roy, Bhattacharya began studies with Rave Shankar, with whom he studied for 13 years. Although he mostly performs and records as a soloist, Bhattacharya has periodically worked with other influential Indian musicians. Together with fellow students of Shankar, V. M. Bhatt (guitar) and Ronu Majumdar (flute), he recorded an album titled The Song of Nature." Bhattacharya recently recorded a duo album, Mental Bliss, with tabla player Bikom Ghosh, based on the theories of higher evolution developed by Sri Aurobindu.
Wikipedia:
Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya is an Indian classical musician who plays the santoor, a type of hammered dulcimer. He has studied with Ravi Shankar and played with other Indian classical musicians such as Ronu Majumdar and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.
Early life
Tarun Bhattacharya was born in Calcutta, India.
Career
Bhattacharya has recorded and played both solo compositions and jugalbandis with instruments like shehnai and bansuri. His versatility has also grown with his role in the first ever santoor-vocal jugalbandi with Anurag Harsh. Although he plays primarily in the Hindustani tradition, he has been known to perform Carnatic ragas as well.
Stylistically, Bhattacharya differs from many other santoor players in his varying uses of tones and timbres. He has a developed technique, including the sliding/glissando technique pioneered by Shivkumar Sharma, but also uses his fingernails in picking patterns by hammering with one hand and plucking with the other. An additional technique involves palm mutes during dramatic sections such as a tihai to produce a staccato melodic conclusion. Perhaps his most unusual and stirring contribution is a modified string at the bottom of the instrument, tuned to a very low pitch, which he presses on and bends during compositions to provide a meend-like robust underlayer or phrase ending.
Bhattacharya has also modified his santoor to include small blocks beneath each string which facilitate "fine tuning" during performances, because the santoor, with its 90-plus strings, goes out of tune frequently.
