Mungal

Artist Name: Mungal
Genre: Fusion
Country: Trinidad and Tobago


Mungal emerged in the musical landscape of his beloved country in 1965 as a mandolin player and moved through several Indian orchestras playing Indian film songs. In 1969 he began studying Indian classical music and having played several instruments he began learning the Sitar under Prof. HS Adesh. His guru was so impressed with him that in a public gathering he showered his blessings with the statement that Mungal has to emerge as a great musician. (Gurus do not normally compliment students in this way.) Mungal's introduction to cross over music started with some of the best jazz musicians of the country who lavished their praises on him. He was later awarded a government scholarship to study classical Indian Music (shastra sangeet) in India. He was exposed to several great teachers including Shree Kalyan Lahiri, Prof. Gangrade, Shri Gopal Shankar Mishra son of Lal Mani Mishra, Krisna Chakravarti, Ram Chakravarti, Pundit Ravi Shankar and Shree Manilal Naag. He emerged from this experience with the gold medal at the Masters degree in the Prayag Sangeet Samithi. After completing his studies Mungal continued on the path of fusion music. In 1996 he recorded his first album "Nirvana" with his band Pantar. This CD caught the notice of Virgin Records, France. He was then signed to record his second album Dreadlocks (2001). The band Mungal Patasar & Pantar released its third album entitled Calebasse Café in October 2005.