Christopher Hale

Christopher Hale lives in Toronto’s Gerrard India Bazaar, where he teaches sitar and performs at Indian and Pakistani weddings. His performances feature both North Indian classical sitar and popular Hindi film songs and ghazals. Conversant in Hindi and Nepali, he draws on his childhood experiences in South Asia.

Chris began his sitar studies in 1984 at the age of fifteen while attending boarding school in India. He received a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Berklee College of Music in 1990 and was awarded the Visharad degree in sitar performance in 1998 from the Bhatkhande Music Institute (Lucknow). In 2002, he continued his studies with his current guru, Partha Chatterjee, a disciple of Pandit Nikhil Banerjee.

From 2000 to 2012, Chris recorded eight albums and toured throughout the Indian diaspora with the Hindi-language fusion band Aradhna, for which he was the lead singer and sitarist.