Pandit Shivkumar Sharma

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma is an Indian classical musician of Hindustani classical music tradition. He is a master of the santoor, which used to be only a folk instrument from the valley of Kashmir.

Shivkumar Sharma is the master instrumentalist of the santoor, after some years as a vocalist. He is credited with single-handedly making the santoor a popular classical instrument[4][10]. In a 1999 interview to rediff.com, Sharma said that it was his father who decided that he should play the santoor and that he never thought he would be choosing it when he started learning music.

Sharma recorded his first solo album in 1960.

Sharma composed the music of Shantaram's Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje(1965).

In 1967, he teamed up with flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and Pandit Brijbhushan Kabra to produce a thematic album, The Call of the Valley which turned out to be one of the greatest hits in Indian classical music. He has composed music for many Hindi films in collaboration with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia starting with Silsila (1980). They came to be known as the 'Shiv-Hari' music duo. Some of the movies they composed music for which were big musical hits are Faasle (1985), Chandni (1989), Lamhe (1991) and Darr (1993).