Folksong – Upbeat, Timeless Music from Ustad Habib Khan

Ustad Habib Khan (Habib Khan) is regarded as one of the best sitar players in US today. Habib Khan lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the founder and artistic director of the Habib Khan Saraswati Temple and Gurukul, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the classical music of North India. Habib Khan has emerged among his peers as one of the most influential musicians and ambassador of Indian classical music in this century.

Habib Khan was born into a family of musicians and can trace his lineage back several generations to when Indian Classical music enjoyed the patronage of the nobility and royalty of India. Habib Khan began his training at the age of five under the strict eye of his accomplished father, Ustad Hameed Jaffer Khan. He has carved out a distinct style of his own which is a blend of his father’s traditional techniques and his own imaginative inventions. He is as much at ease with light classical and religious music as he is with pure classical renderings of ragas.

He is actively involved with Om Music Circle, an organization which was recently formed to promote the music of North India. Habib Khan performs many classical Indian music concerts, with the Habib Khan Indian Jazz Ensemble, and even in a classical Indian Jugalbandi with the unusual distinction that it is between sitar and guitar.

He is a genre-defying sitarist and has composed music for several CD’s and performed with world class musicians including Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Pandit Ramesh Misra, Pandit Vikku Vinayakram, Hamze Aul Din and others. Habib Khan composed Fire Dance (played with Pat Martino, and others). He also produced music for a yoga video series by Vasanti Bhat.

Folksong — from Jewel of Heart by Ustad Habib Khan

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