About me

Born and raised in Germany, Arup Sen Gupta belongs to the second generation of Indians settled in Germany. 
 His parents being connaisseurs and lovers of Indian music, Arup soon came into contact with traditional Indian, especially Bengali, culture and music. From the age of 12 onwards Arup regularly started attending Indian classical music concerts as well as listening to recorded Indian music and - without having any formal traditional instruction on Tabla at that time - accompanying his parents on Tabla while they were singing devotional songs, Tagore songs, Bengali popular songs etc. 
 In the late 1980`s Arup met the accomplished Tabla player Sri Subhen Chatterjee of Calcutta who soon became his friend as well as musical teacher and advisor (Guru). Since then Arup has been under Subhenji`s affectionate guidance. Subhen Chatterjee is the seniormost disciple of renowned and world famous Tabla Maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, torchbearer of the LUCKNOW Style of Tabla playing. Since the mid 1990`s Arup has also been receiving additional training from Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri.

 Besides several CD releases, in which Arup`s Tabla playing has been featured and recordings for different Radio Stations, such as the BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk), WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) and BRF (Belgian Radio), Arup regularly plays throughout Europe, India and the US. Meanwhile he is one of the most sought after Tabla accompanists in Europe, especially in Germany.

In addition to concert performances he also curates concerts in the city of Aachen in collaboration with a local art gallery and with the Indo-German Society.

As a performer of Indian Classical Music Arup has already accompanied some of India`s finest musicians from the Hindustani and Carnatic traditions such as  Shahid Parvez Khan, Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, Kala Ramnath, Purbayan Chatterjee, Rajeev Taranath, Kushal Das, late Buddhadev Dasgupta, Partha Bose, late Dhruba Ghosh, late Subroto Roy-Chowdhury, Harsh Wardhan, Ramnath Gopalakrishnan, Mysore Manjunath, Lalitha&Nandini Violin Sisters, Partho Sarothy, Sangeeta Shankar, Ronu Majumdar, Rupak Kulkarni, Sandipan Samajpati, Ranajit Sengupta, Sandip Chatterjee Sumitra Guha, Padmini Rao, Sugato Nag, Durga Arya (Kathak), Gaurav Mazumdar, Ashraf Khan, Shakir Khan, Hidayat Khan, Ikhlaq Hussain Khan, Alif Laila, and many others as well as accomplished western performers of Indian classical Music such as Ken Zuckerman, Al Gromer Khan, David Trasoff,  George Ruckert, Steve Gorn, Stephanie Bosch, to name a few, on Tabla.

Besides being a performer of Indian Classical Music Arup is also involved in numerous projects and bands with contemporary Non-Indian musicians, covering a range from Jazz, Irish Folk, Jewish Klezmer, East European Folk music, "Neue Musik", Arabian classical music up to New Age, Experimental and Pop Music.