Sikh music

A lifelong commitment to Sikh music

Alongside my academic work I teach, research, preserve and record Sikh sacred music.

• Honour
  OBE, King's New Year Honours 2026, for services to Musical Heritage, to Faith Communities and to Integration.
• Exam
  Led the development of the Sikh Sacred Music exams: eight grades, UCAS points, recognised in the UK qualifications framework. Reported by 27 Indian media outlets, ITV, BBC and BBC Radio 4 Today, endorsed by the Akal Takhat, and recognised with a special award in the Houses of Parliament.
• Academy
  Co-director and founder of the Gurmat Sangeet Academy, the largest Sikh music school outside India, with 15 weekly classes in Birmingham and Coventry for children and adults. I oversee the training of 12 teachers.
• Outreach
  Eleven travelling Sikh Music Workshops between January 2023 and January 2025, including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial, to raise awareness of Sikh music.
• Heritage
  The Sikh Gramophone Project: 127 of the earliest recorded Sikh musical pieces researched, digitised and released over 14 years, with gramophone collectors in India, EMI and Sikh organisations.
• Community
  Chair of Sikhs in Academia, a network of Sikh academics, researchers and students, which runs an annual PhD conference, an academic conference and a good governance workshop. Chair of the International Sikh Research Conference at Warwick.
• Writing
  Guru Nanak and the Bhagats: The Development of Early Sikh Identity (2023), The Gursikh Legacy (1997), and research papers on the harmonium, emotion in Sikh musicology and kirtan in the diaspora. Sikh music publications