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Sharmistha Sen is one of the few women instrumentalists to have attained prominence in Indian Classical music. Her main teachers were the late Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan, who played in the classic dhrupad-based Jaipur -Seniya style; and the late Professor D. T. Joshi, a widely respected teacher who was a disciple of the legendary Ustad Inayat Khan. Her musical style can perhaps be described as a cross between the traditional Imdadkhani style imbibed from D. T. Joshi, and the Jaipur Seniya style learned from Mushtaq Ali Khan. Her touch, strokes, glides and subsequent production of tonal and microtonal effects are typical of her two gurus, but has a signature decidedly her own.

There are very few accomplished musicians today who have had music training both in the unique classical Master-disciple, guru-shishya system as well as in the modern University system where she earned her doctoral degree from Visvabharati University in Santiniketan.Sharmistha made her public debut when she was just thirteen. She has won numerous awards and participated in many major music festivals in India. Later, she concertized throughout Europe and the U. S. During the 1983-84 academic year, she was on the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle, as Artist-in-Residence. She was a Professor of Music in Daulat Ram College at Delhi University.

- www.indiarts.com