Bansuri Workshop in London with Pandit Ajay Prasanna

Pandit Ajay Prasanna teaches a three-hour bansuri workshop at The Tate Institute in London on Wednesday 19 August 2026, the evening before his London Ragas concert at the same venue. He holds four Grammy nominations, the Global Indian Music Award for his album Cinema, the Sangeet Ratna and the Surmani, and his bansuri appears on the Gorillaz album Parvat (The Mountain).

He carries the Banaras Gharana flute lineage of his father, Pandit Bholanath Prasanna, whose students include Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Bamboo, six holes, and a way of shaping breath into a raga handed down inside one family for three generations.

Open to everyone in the room

Children from around eight, adults who have never held an instrument, students mid-grade and players with years behind them sit together. Bring any instrument: bansuri, sitar, sarod, violin, guitar, piano or voice. The material rests on musical ideas rather than one instrument's mechanics, and the room asks for no instrument and no experience. Parents sit with their children rather than dropping them off, and many of them end up playing.

What the evening covers

Pandit Prasanna opens with a short recital, then teaches for the rest of the evening.

• Breath and swara: how breath becomes tone on a bamboo flute, how the notes sit under the ear, and why a raga is more than a scale
• The alap: how a raga opens in free time, and what to listen for while it does
• Phrasing: meend, the glide joining two notes without restriking, and kan, the grace note that gives a phrase its accent
• Rhythm: the taal cycle underneath, finding the sam, and landing a phrase back on it

He hears participants play and gives one-to-one feedback before the close, and takes questions on technique, riyaz discipline and the tradition itself.

Included with every ticket

• Small-group teaching from a Banaras Gharana pandit
• One-to-one feedback on your playing
• Open Q&A on technique, practice and tradition
• Refreshments and drinks
• Certificate of participation
• Access to the KalaSudha learning community, with its music-focused calling system, notation tools and structured courses

Date: Wednesday 19 August 2026
Time: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Doors Open: 5:30 PM
Venue: The Tate Institute, 1 Wythes Road, London E16 2DN

Adult places cost £40 and student places £30 until 6:00 PM on 12 August, then £50 and £35. The room holds thirty. Book at kalasudha.com.