Deobrat Mishra · Sitar

Deobrat Mishra is no doubt one of the most energetic and innovative sitar art­ists of India. Selectivity, melody and rhythmic complexity are typical features in his lively playing style.
Born in 1976, he represents the 11th generation of the Benares Gharana tradition. As a young child he studied tabla with his mother, Pramila Mishra, who is the granddaughter of the wellknown tabla player Pandit Baiju Mishra. He started by studying vocal music with his father at the age of five and began his sitar lessons a year later. That same year, after only six months of studying the sitar, he gave his first public performance on stage. Five years later, he performed for the first time on the All India Radio.
Since 1994 he has been touring throughout Europe with his father. In the same year he was chosen to receive the award of the best young sitar player of India. In 2000 he received the “Jewels of Sound Award” in Mumbai. His many projects include music workshops, solo performances for radio and television as well as world music programs with Indian and European artists. Moreover, he is the one in charge of cultural events and music lessons provided by the Academy of Indian Classical Music, the school he founded along with his father, Pandit Shivnath Mishra, in 2006.
Recently, he received a Masters degree in sitar from the Prayag Sangit Samiti in Allahabad. Among many other projects, the Mishras performed and recorded their music with the Western Symphony Orchestra of Italy in 2005. Nowadays, they fully dedicate their art to similar projects including annual tours around the world.
Above all, the Mishras (father and son) serve as two of India’s leading cultural ambassadors of our times.

Nik Fliri · Harp

Nik Fliri was born in Bregenz at Lake Constance and brought up in a musical family Feldkirch/Vorarlberg. Since earliest childhood he got in touch with different musical instruments. Playing intuitive, trying out different sounds has allways been his aim. Recorder, piano and the trombone where the first instruments he studied as at musical school. After moving to Tyrol he stud­ied Classical Music on Basson at the “Music Academy of Innsbruck”, the Landeskonservatorium Tirol, and also took composition classes there.
In 1998 he got his first lesson in playing the Austrian Small Pipes, called “Hümmelchen”. From then on taking part in courses for Central French Bagpipe (cornemuses du Centre) with Sepp Pichler(AT), Walter Rizzo(I), Christoph Pelgen(D) and others, he started to promote Drone Music in Austria. He is Co-Founder of “Tiroler Musikverein – Institution zur epidemischen Verbreitung der Bordun­musik” an organisation, managing different music and dance events in Tyrol with the emphasis for Drone Music. Since many years he is in charge of the programme for this well known music festival for Bagpipe and Hurdy-Gurdy Music in Maria Waldrast/Tyrol, a monastery up in the austrian alps. He is Musician, Arrangeur, Composer and Member in different ensembles.
(Cantlon, ArcheoMusik Vienna, Orient Okzident Express, OpenStrings – Sitar &Harp together with Deobrat Mishra) He also perfomes as musician at the playback theater group “Ad Hoc Theater Vienna” and as guest at “Pepita Playback Színház Budapest”. As a teacher for Bagpipes he is known in Austria and abroad.
He studied Music Therapy in Vienna and since 2011 he is an aprooved Music Therapist. Nik lives and workes as musician and Music Therapist in Vienna, Austria.

Our Guest Musician

Prashant Mishra is one of the best young Tabla player of Benares Music tradition. He started to learn the Tabla, at the age of five, with Biru Mishra of Varanasi and is presently studiing with Mr.Chakkan lal Mishra a student of the great Tabla player Anokhelal Mishra. In 2004 he won the first prize in a Tabla competition organized by Sangeet Natak Academy Uttar Pradesh India. He received many awards for his tabla playing at many different places.