Saby Bhattacharya

Saby (Sabyasachi) Bhattacharya, is a North Indian classical instrumentalist based in Melbourne, Australia, who plays the 19-string sarod. He is also known in musical circles as Rahul Bhattacharya.
Saby Bhattacharya trained as a vocalist in his early years before moving to the sarod. He plays the sarod in the style of sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan with influences from the Shahjahanpur style of sarod playing. This type of sarod playing uses a much smaller sarod and extensive use of vocal phrasings requiring fast left hand movements.
He also trained in the Etawah gharana (school) of music under sitar maestro Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan.
Bhattacharya is the only known practitioner of the Amjad Ali Khan style of sarod in Australia and New Zealand.
Bhattacharya is active in cross cultural musical collaborations. He has performed with Chilean/Sri Lankan Duo Alex & Nilusha in their award winning album Moments in Time and with cellist Emma Ayres. He also performed the first ever Australian concerto for Sarod with the Preston Symphony Orchestra in March 2014, conducted by Mario Dobernig. He also started the first series of Indian classical jugalbandis (duets) with the western alto saxophone player Nicolas Buff as part of the musical group Tihai3. Bhattacharya continues to promote Indian classical music and the sarod to wider Australian audiences through performances in regional cities and towns. He performed the first ever sarod concert in Darwin in May 2014.
He wrote the book "How to Play the Sarod" considered the first ever method book written on this instrument in 2012.
Bhattacharya graduated with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the and completed his MBA from Deakin University in Australia

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