Hariprasad Chaurasia was born in Allahabad in (1 july 1938) into a non musical family.
Initially a vocalist, He first started learning vocal music from his neighbour, Pt. Rajaram at the age of 15. Later, he switched to playing the flute under the tutelage of Pt. Bholanath of Varanasi. Much later, while working for All India Radio, he received guidance from the reclusive Smt. Annapurna Devi (daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan).
Apart from classical music, he has made a mark as a Hindi language film music director along with Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, forming a group called Shiv-Hari. He has also collaborated with various world musicians in experimental cross-cultural performances, including the fusion group Shakti.
Perhaps the best work in this field was the series "Soundscapes" (Times Music) {Music of the mountains, Rivers sea etc} Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.