Mungal Patasar

Sitar player, born 1948 in Trinidad. Like most Indian artiste in Trinidad and Tobago, Mungal Patasar grew up in a musical family playing instruments and singing Bhajans and Kirtans with his brothers and sisters in the village sandhya group. He later played the Mandolin with the popular Dil E Nadan and BWIA National Indian Orchestra. Mungal however dared to venture outside the conventions of the Indo-Trinidadian music when he started learning to play the sitar under Shri H.S. Adesh. In 1978 Mungal won the first prize in the Grand Finals of the Mastana Bahar Competition. He later began to experiment with a new sound created by combining the steel-pan and the sitar, which would later become a world phenomenon. Mungal went to India to pursue his studies in music at the Banaras Hindu University, with hard work and determination he obtained a gold medal in the Masters Degree at Allahabad, India. On his return to his homeland Mungal continued his work on fusion, daring again to work outside the conventional music using the ragas to create lilting melodies with elements of Calypso, Latin, Jazz, Bollywood and every genre within his experience. Mungal is now accepted as a world-class musician playing at festivals like the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland and the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. He holds the lofty position of Distinguished Master Artiste in Residence at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) where he was also honored with the PhD. in Music. He is also the recipient of the national Humming Bird (gold) medal and the Maestro Extraordinaire (First Citizens Bank) awards amongst many such honors. He has also been inducted in Halls of Fame in both Trinidad and Tobago and In India. He has been honored in Miami and New York (Sunshine Award). At the age of sixty-five Mungal is still creating new music he has just completed two pieces for symphony and performed these with the UTT Chamber Ensemble in June 11th 2011.