Dhruv Sangari

Born in 1981, Dhruv began his training in Hindustani classical music at the age of seven with Shahana Bannerjee and continued under Ustad Iqbal Ahmad Khan.

[1] His journey in music led him to discover Pakistani Qawwali maestro Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whom he eventually met and learnt from in the mid-1990s.

[4] In 2008 Dhruv scripted and anchored another series based on Indian Classical Music titled 'Raagon ki Haseen Duniya' that aired on DD Urdu.

Apart from singing the 2013 chartbuster 'Lutt Jawaan' for Music Director Mannan Shah in the movie Commando: A One Man Army starring Vidyut Jamwal, and the hit Coke Studio (India) MTV track 'Kyun Na' with composer Amit Trivedi; Dhruv penned the lyrics for song 'Abr e Karam' sung by Shilpa Rao for the movie Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain released in 2014 starring Martin Sheen, Mischa Barton and Kal Penn.

[5][6][7][8] Primarily influenced by Sufi and classical maestros including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen, Sabri Brothers, Ustad Rashid Khan, Madan Gopal Singh and Shubha Mudgal; Dhruv-Bilal, in addition to his music, has also collaborated, taught, performed and presented papers at conferences with several artistes, scholars, international institutions and universities.

He worked with Theater director Habib Tanvir on the proscenium Hypatia, with Joachim Schloemer's PVC Tanz at Auroville, India, Stadttheater and House of World Cultures, Germany for the critically acclaimed play The Abduction of Sita, based on artist Nina Paley's 'Sita sings the Blues ; at the Smithsonian Institution, DC; as Artist in Residence at Colby College, Maine; and in various events at Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, SAIS, DC; Berkeley, SFO; New York University, NY, US Library of Congress and the University of Virginia, US, National College of Art, Lahore and the National Center for Performing Arts, Mumbai.