Purbayan Chatterjee gave his first sensational performance at the age of 5 at the India Festival in Basel in 1982. He is accepted as the most gifted torch‐bearer of the Senia‐Maihar Gharana (school) of Baba Alauddin Khan and has become a powerful force in the Indian Classical Music scenario. At the very age of 3, he surprised his family and friends with his extraordinary capacity of annotating every single song that he heard at that tender age. He was initiated to Sitar at 4 by his father Shri Parthapratim Chatterjee, a disciple of Pt. Nikhil Bannerjee and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and a distinguished sitar player in his own right, having established himself as a highly respected teacher and performer in Europe, USA as well as in India. Purbayan now takes lessons with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

From a very young age, Purbayan had already begun to display an uncanny skill for all the virtuous and artistic dimensions of the Sitar. He plays the aesthetically satisfying style of Pt. Nikhil Bannerjee, whom he considers his God. Although a Sitar‐player by profession, he still remains to this day, an astonishing vocalist with a God‐gifted voice that has been acknowledged by the topmost maestros in India.

Along with the rigorous honing of his talent by his father, Purbayan remained a topper throughout his academic career in school and the prestigious Presidency College, Kolkata. But his decision to take up Indian Classical Music as a profession became firm at the age of 14, when he received the most coveted honor, the President of India Award, for being the best instrumentalist of the country.

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