Trinity Trio: Debasis Chakroborty, Deepak Shah, and Durjay Bhaumik

For Dartington Trust Hall near Totnes, park on the estate in the car parks near the Hall and Gardens or at The Cider Press Centre. Parking is cashless: pay at the machine or with the RingGo app. Blue Badge bays sit near key locations on the estate, so check the signs for their terms.

Accessible toilets are in the Courtyard next to the Welcome Centre and in the Hotel East Wing. The gardens have wheelchair-friendly routes, and you can hire a Tramper through the Countryside Mobility Scheme. The estate's walking trails can be uneven and slippery. Contact the venue about specific access needs.

KalaSudha has presented Indian classical music near Totnes at Dartington Trust Hall, on the Dartington estate (TQ9 6EL): an evening concert in August 2023, and the full-day Dartington Ragas Festival in September 2025, with Kathak dance, dhrupad singing, sitar, Indian slide guitar, piano, sarangi and tabla. Festival artists included Jonathan Mayer on sitar, Pandit Debasis Chakroborty on Indian slide guitar, the raga pianist Deepak Shah and Ustad Akram Khan on tabla.

KalaSudha members stream live concerts and recordings on its own platform. To hear about new Totnes dates, press Register for updates on the KalaSudha Totnes page.

Pandit Debasis Chakroborty is a Hindustani slide guitarist and the senior-most disciple of Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, and his playing reflects Kabra's style. His name is also written Debasis Chakraborty. He plays in the Senia-Maihar gharana and has taught since 1992.

He has been part of the Department of Performing Arts at Mangalayatan University since its inception, and returns to universities in Australia and the USA as a conductor-performer and artist-in-residence. He helped carry out a joint music research project between Mangalayatan University and Monash University, and has published 10 research papers.

Deepak Shah is a pianist, arranger and music director from a musical family. His grandfather, Shantilal Shah, and Mohan Junior taught him classical music, and that training opened the door to arrangement and direction. Over about 25 years he has worked with leading artists from India and performed in India and abroad. He has composed music and background scores for over 30 films in Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi and Bhojpuri, and recorded albums with T-Series, Tips and Venus.

The Indian slide guitar is a guitar laid flat across the lap and stopped with a steel bar instead of fingers on frets. It is an instrument of Hindustani classical music, the classical music of North India. Sympathetic strings ring underneath the melody unstruck, and the player plucks extra drone (chikari) strings.

The bar never leaves the string, so one note travels into the next without a break. For its history and players, see the Indian slide guitar page. You can learn it with KalaSudha in the online academy.

The Senia-Maihar gharana is the sarod lineage that Allauddin Khan founded at Maihar, a former princely state, in the early 20th century. Most sources treat it and the Maihar gharana as one school spanning several instruments. "Senia" names the Tansen line, which Allauddin Khan joined as a disciple of Wazir Khan of Rampur. He brought a dhrupad approach to the sarod, sitar, violin and bansuri. Among KalaSudha's artists, Pandit Debasis Chakroborty plays in the gharana.