Where words fail, music speaks

 Internationally, he has performed at major music festivals and prestigious concert halls such as the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the Sydney Opera House, the Salzburg International Music Festival, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, the South African National Arts Festival, the BRICS Summit in China and the Theatre de le Ville in Paris. In India, Shubhendra Rao has performed at major Indian music festivals including Doverlane Music Conference, ITC Sangeet Sammelan, Baba Harvallabh Sangeet Mahasabha, Shankarlal Festival, Gunidas Sammelan, Sankat Mochan Sammarroh, Kashi Utsav, Swami Haridas Sammellan. 

 Saskia Rao-de Haas is a cellist, composer, cultural entrepreneur and educator from the Netherlands. She trained as a Western cellist from a young age but changed course when she came into contact with Indian music in 1993. She is known as a great performer of Indian classical music and hailed as the creator of a new instrument – ​​the Indian cello. Flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia speaks of his student Saskia as “someone who has been taught by God”. According to him, “everyone should listen to her music.” Her compositions with her sitarist husband Pandit Shubhendra Rao are well known around the world. Critics and audiences alike have praised her for her artistic depth and technical virtuosity. Saskia has performed at the world’s most prestigious concert halls including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, the Guimet Museum in Paris and the New Directions cello festival. She is the first non-Indian artist to have performed as a soloist at the prestigious Doverlane Music conference in Kolkata. As a composer, she is eminent in bridging the gap between Indian and Western classical music traditions. Together with Pt Shubhendra Rao, she has composed for world music leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Dutch Prime Minister. She co-founded the Shubhendra and Saskia Rao foundation to promote the joy and benefits that Indian classical music can bring to children.