Music Without Boundaries

West Road Concert Hall is at 11 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP. Drivers can park at Madingley Road Park & Ride, off Junction 13 of the M11, free for up to 18 hours with charges after that, then take the Universal (U) bus to the University Library stop, about 50 metres from the front door.

The main entrance is step-free with push-button automatic doors, and Row D has level access. The Concert Hall has three wheelchair spaces, seats D19 to D21, which you book through the box office. The induction loop serves rows D to T; rows A to C and the balconies sit outside it.

KalaSudha presents live Indian classical music in Cambridge, England, and lists each concert on its Cambridge page with a link to book. To hear when the next Cambridge date is set, read how to hear about new Cambridge concerts.

KalaSudha has presented concerts at West Road Concert Hall, Lee Seng Tee Hall at Wolfson College and Cambridge Junction. For the artists, see which artists have played Cambridge.

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.