Manish Vyas

Manish Vyas was born on 29 April 1971 in Rajkot, Gujarat, into a family where musicians gathered to play regularly. He began on tabla as a child, studying with Zinda Hussain at his hometown's music school for four years, and learned harmonium in Rajkot as well. When he moved to Pune in 1989 he continued tabla with Nishikant, a disciple of Zakir Hussain.

The performing years took him outward. After his band Hamsafar dissolved he played duo concerts through Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, Israel and India from 2001 to 2006, and from 2007 to 2009 he toured North America and Europe with Snatam Kaur's band as tabla player and mantra singer.

He has since produced and published more than thirty albums, ranging across mantra and kirtan, Gayatri, healing ragas and Sufi repertoire. He sings and plays tabla, keyboard, harmonium and santoor.

He now lives in Switzerland, where he runs a school of Indian music and gives workshops, retreats and seminars on chanting, tabla and the traditions the music comes out of. What drives that teaching is a worry about how Indian traditions arrive in the West: he says they sometimes take unauthentic shapes there, and his stated aim is to keep the transmission going back to the source it came from.