Sarvar Sabri

Sarvar Sabri is a Birmingham-based composer and a leading classical dance accompanist. He has worked with many prolific Kathak dancers in the UK from the stars of the traditional genre such as Pratap Pawar, to younger, contemporary dancers, including Akram Khan. Since settling in Britain in 1989, Sabri has been in great demand to perform as a soloist, accompanist to Indian classical dance, instrumental and vocal music as well as a fusion musician, pioneering Indo-Jazz.

Sabri is from an accomplished musical family in New Delhi, India; his father, Ustad Sabri Khan, is globally recognised as master of the sarangi (a sarangi has three main gut strings and about 37 sympathetic strings and is carved from wood).

Members of the Sabri family have played the ‘sarangi’, a difficult and highly regarded instrument, for seven generations though Sarvar Sabri chose to focus his musical energies on the tabla. Sabri’s brothers Gulfam and Kamal are also multi-talented vocalists and musicians, playing the santoor, tabla and sarangi between them.

In India, Sabri was schooled by the best tabla masters, and won a government scholarship to study under one of the greatest music teachers in India, Ustad Bundu Khan. However, Sabri’s father knew only too well the hardships of being a musician and urged his son to follow an alternative career path. By 1980, Sabri had earned two degrees, in commerce and in music from universities in India.

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