Shiv Kumar Sharma

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (born January 13, 1938) is an Indian classical musician, working in the Hindustani classical music tradition. Santoor, a type of hammered dulcimer whose strings are struck with a pair of light carved wooden mallets

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (born January 13, 1938) is an Indian classical musician, working in the Hindustani classical music tradition. Santoor, a type of hammered dulcimer whose strings are struck with a pair of light carved wooden mallets is a folk instrument from the valley of Kashmir.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Santoor or Shata-Tantri Veena as it was called in the ancient times, was used as an accompaniment to a specific type of singing called Sufiana Mausiqi. When Pandit Uma Dutt Sharma, a renowned vocalist from Jammu, and a disciple of Pt. Bade Ramdasji of Benaras gharana spotted it, he was convinced of the potentialities of the instrument. After extensive research on the instrument he bestowed the responsibility of establishing it on the concert platform on his only son Shivkumar. He is the master instrumentalist of the santoor, and in the early years he was a student of the tabla and a vocalist.