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KRISHNAKANT SHUKLA While teaching Physics and Astronomy as an assistant professor in upstate New York, Dr. Shukla decided to quit academics and follow his heart and soul deep into the fathomless waters of Indian Classical Music. Having studied with great maestros like Srimati Laxmi Shankar, Ustaad Ali Akbar Khan, and Dr. Tapan Bhattacharya, he returned to India in 1994 to explore the roots of Indian Classical Music in the great living oral folk traditions. His musical search led him into remote villages in the Himalayan foothills, as well as far flung and difficult to reach dwellings in the central plains. He has been particularly influenced by the songs of Kabir, Gorakhnath, and other nirguna bhakti poet-saints—songs that have been sung as part of a living oral tradition that is over six hundred years old.

Dr. Shukla’s repertoire includes compositions of Tyagaraja, Tulsidas, Surdas, Meera, Tukaram, Purandardas and other poet-saints of India, as well as the musical compositions of Sufi saints. He has also been researching, recording and performing the folk songs of rural northern India, which, according to him, is an art form of unparalleled beauty which is fast becoming extinct.

HEMANT EKBOTE received his Master’s degree in Music from M.S. University, Baroda, India. He studied with Maestro Pandit Sudhir Kumar Saxena of Ajrada Delhi Gharana. He has provided tabla accompaniments to Pandit Jasraj, Laxmi Shankar, Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, Sujat Husain Khan and other renowned artists. Currently he serves as a visiting music lecturer at University of San Diego and is a founder of the Divine School of Music.