Biography
Born into a musical family in 1957, Sanjeeb Sircar was taught singing by his mother and encouraged in music and to play musical instruments by his father.
He took an active part during his school years at Allahabad, at school music concerts, and picked up the mouth organ, banjo, tabla, violin and drums and played with the school band.
During middle school he took lessons on the piano but could not continue due to the passing away of his teacher. In the following years he started to learn the guitar and towards the later years of his school he played guitar and joined a group of carol-singers, played guitar with them and formed a music group, playing semi-professionally.
Being in the cultural city of Allahabad he developed a curiosity and desire to know more about the Sitar and started taking lessons in the same.
Upon finishing school, he studied electrical engineering for a while but a more serious interest in music led him on the advice of elders in the family-friends circle to join the Music Faculty of the Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, for a full-time study of the Sitar.
His main teachers there were Dr.Raj Bhan Singh, at whose residence he initially stayed, and Dr.K.C.Gangrade, Dean of the Music Faculty. He completed a diploma course there.
Being in Benares also gave him a wider exposure to the gamut of North India Classical Music and Dance, with the numerous concerts being held there, with renowned artists like Pt. Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and his present teacher Ustad Shujaat Khan, and others coming to perform there. It also made it possible for him to interact with many fine foreign musicians who had come to study Indian Music and culture in the city of Benares.
Upon returning to Allahabad after two years he continued to study the Sitar with the eighty year old veteran Sitar teacher Pt.Banwari Lal and continued visiting Benares for concerts and meeting other musicians periodically. In his spare time he also started taking lessons in tabla.
In 1978 he was invited to Italy where he played Sitar at many places and played fusion music with other musicians using other musical instruments as the guitar, saxophone, flute, piano, tabla, etc. and gave some private lessons.
On returning to India he continued an extensive training in Sitar with Pt.Banwari Lal for about four years, which included practice-lesson sessions, which often lasted up to 4 to 5 hours at a stretch, besides another 4 to 5 hours of daily private practice, and with some other noted musicians of the city including Pt.Shantanu Chatterji.
During this period Sanjeeb also learnt the piano and played the organ and piano in churches, sang in choirs, completed graduation from the Kanpur University privately in Sociology, English Literature, Indian Music; and took the degree of Sangit Prabhakar from the Prayag Sangit Samiti, Allahabad, in Sitar.
He then returned to Benaras, took up a part-time job performing in the evenings at a three star hotel, while continuing his study of the Sitar, teaching privately, playing, teaching and learning and experimenting with different forms of music like, Fusion, Western Classical, and Jazz, with foreign musicians for about an year.
On relocating to New Delhi in the early-eighties he worked as music teacher at a few well-known institutions and also performed professionally and had a chance to see a wide variety of programmes in the metropolis of New Delhi.
In 1986 he got the opportunity to travel to England where he performed and then went to the U.S.A. where he performed and taught the Sitar at a number of places for about an year and gained more experience and knowledge of Western Music.
On returning to New Delhi he took up a job as Music teacher at Blue Bells International School and completed further studies in Sitar with Dr.Moni Das, a senior student of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and took the degree of Sangit Praveen (Post-Graduation) from the Prayag Sangit Samiti.
Being in New Delhi also gave him the opportunity to pursue his interest in Western Music in his spare time and he joined Western Music Christian Choirs as a tenor and bass singer, took lessons in Western Classical and Jazz Piano, completing the fifth grade from the Trinity College of Music, London, played piano on most Sundays at Churches and played Pop, Rock, Jazz and popular Indian Music professionally with well known local music groups using the Guitar, Keyboards and Sitar and singing.
Wanting to further improve his standard of playing the Sitar, he started taking lessons from Ustaad Shujaat Khan, renowned Sitar virtuoso, and has been learning from him since the last ninteen years.
With the knowledge and experience gained over the years, Sanjeeb feels he has yet to use it to its full potential. He is based at New Delhi and is involved in teaching, performance and production of music.