Artistic Director and Founder Trustee at Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust
Born in Nakuru, Kenya, Sandeep grew up to the sounds of his teacher and father, Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee (1937-2005), playing the tabla. In 1975, his family migrated to London where Sandeep attended his first classical concert in 1977 by Pandit Nikhil Banerjee with Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, which ignited a passion for Indian classical music.
In 1986, whilst a finance undergraduate, he set up ‘Taal – Rhythms of India’ which was established purely to promote tabla solos. Several leading artists performed for Taal including Pt Anindo Chatterjee, Ustad Zakir Hussain and the last concert in 1996 by Pt Swapan Chaudhuri. In 2004, Sandeep founded ‘Tablaonline’ to create an online platform for Indian classical music, which was inaugurated by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. Unfortunately, in 2005, Bhai Gurmit Singh Virdee suddenly left this world and Sandeep decided to establish a one-off tribute event, which to celebrate his father’s passion for Indian classical music. The Darbar Festival was born and it has grown from strength to strength – now an annual feature in the classical calendar. The Festival provides a platform for great masters, emerging talent from both the UK and abroad and presents four key genres of Indian classical music – Hindustani, Carnatic, Dhrupad and Percussion. Another key value was to ensure that accompanying artists were paid fairly and that women in music were supported. Sandeep left his financial career in 2010 dedicating all his time to the Darbar Festival, more recently creating a digital platform on TV and YouTube taking Indian classical music to a global platform. Alongside this, Darbar has a music education project teaching 8-11 years olds in schools in Leicester in the UK, where his father taught tabla as a peripatetic teacher for 22 years.
In 2017, Sandeep was awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the promotion of Indian musical heritage in the UK.
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