Niladri Kumar is the son and disciple of Sitar Maestro Pandit Kartick Kumar, who is the senior most disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar. Niladri Kumar started learning when he was four and gave his first performance at the age of six at the Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry, since then on he has never stopped traveling all over India and all over the world mesmerizing audiences with both his solo Hindustani Classical Performances and also with his fusion projects such as Sitar Funk. He has performed with many mayor western an Indian artists as the likes of John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Herbie Hancock, Richard Bonna, Jonas Hellborg, Charles Lloyd, between many others Niladri is also known for being the intellectual creator of an electric 5-string sitar, which he plays commonly at his crossover projects, utilizing this instrument and distortions and loops in his performances. He calls this electric sitar a 'zitar' and is in the process of patenting its design. He has since been awarded the titles Sur Ratna, Surmani, Jadubhatta Puraskar, the Sanskriti Award for excellence in music performance, the Immies MTV music awards for his album 'IF' and the prestigious GIMMA Award for best Hindustani Classical instrumental album in 2011, for his album 'Aura'. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Niladri+Kumar">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.