Well, Shaibaal and I were discussing Pt. Nikhil Banerjee on the Imrat Khan/Vilayat Khan/Ravi Shankar thread (talk about sticking to the theme !) and realized we both put the ability of a rendition to move the listener way above everything else. So I thought in this thread we could tell each other about our favorite artists for each instrument that we like because of the importance they give to the Raaga Bhaava and their ability to move us with their music. Here are my choices:

Sitar: Pt. Nikhil Banerjee
Sarod: Pt. Vasant Rai
Bansuri: Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia
Shehnai: Ustad Bismillah Khan
Sarangi: Pt. Ram Narayan
Santoor: Pt. Shivkumar Sharma

Feel free to add more categories if you wish.

Bibhas

Bhibhas :

When we think about Bansuri/Flute how can we forget to think about Pannalal Ghosh.......??

Shuklas

Shuklas,
I certainly do not forget to think of Panna Babu (if that's what you meant), being a bansuri player myself. But to satisfy the conditions for this list, I certainly put Hariji ahead of Panna Babu. Panna Babu was a great musician, but for him Bansuri wouldn't be what it is today but with all due respect to him, his recitals have not moved me the way Hariji's have.
Bibhas

Bhibhas :

Thanks and very nice to know that you are a Bansuri player.We invite you to upload/e-mail us your recordings. Contributer and an artist is certainly a matter of proud for HFM.

Shuklas

Thanks for the nice words Shuklas. I'm not really all that good, still in the early stages. I did upload a short piece here if you're interested:
http://www.hamaraforums.com/index.php?show...88&#entry118088

Bibhas