Profile
Vishaal Sapuram is a Carnatic (Indian) classical musician, and an exponent of the rare Indian slide lute known as the chitravina. He is a disciple of the chitravina legend Shri. N Ravikiran.
Vishaal began his musical journey at the age of three, learning vocal music under respected gurus in the USA and India. Later, he came under the tutelage of Shri. Ravikiran, and under his guidance, gave his first full vocal concert at the Music Academy Madras at the age of nine. At age thirteen, he began to perform on the chitravina, joining the ranks of the rare few performers of the instrument.
His music has been featured at prestigious venues in India, USA, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, and so on. Apart from his solo concerts, he has accompanied stalwarts like percussion wizard T H Subash Chandran, his own guru Ravikiran, and Abhishek Raghuram, and he has also collaborated with many respected artistes from both within and beyond the Carnatic tradition.
Vishaal's music has been hailed by critics at The Hindu and other publications as ‘mesmerising’ and ‘showing his musical wisdom’, its ‘sonorous sound taking the audience into a trance’.
An A-Grade artiste for All India Radio, Vishaal has been felicitated with the Dr M S Subbulakshmi Fellowship from Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha Mumbai, several awards from the Music Academy Madras, the Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar Endowment Award from Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai), a scholarship from India Fine Arts (Austin, USA), and so on.
Vishaal began teaching music at the age of ten and has trained many students in both vocal and chitravina. He has also given many talks, presentations, and workshops on various topics in Carnatic music at the Temple of Fine Arts (Malaysia), the Art of Living International Centre (Bengaluru), Brown University, the University of Alabama, and Laya of UC Berkeley (USA), and so on.
A student of the poetry in Carnatic music, Vishaal has written English translations for several Carnatic compositions. He has also developed a computer system for notating Carnatic music, ‘SvaraScript’, that has been adopted by several students, teachers, and music book authors. Vishaal holds Bachelor’s degrees in Sanskrit and Economics and certificates in Tamil and Business from the University of Texas (Austin, USA).